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FACEBOOK’S STOCK PLUNGED to a new low yesterday as some of the social networking leader’s early backers got their first chance to sell their shares since the company’s initial public offering went awry.
Analysts interpreted the unusually high trading volume as a clear sign that at least a few of the insiders were seizing on a fresh selling opportunity. That is stirring a debate over whether they are simply locking in long-awaited gains on investments made many years ago or bailing out of a company that has lost its luster.
A breakdown on just how many major Facebook Inc shareholders sold their stock probably won’t be available until next week at the earliest. Securities regulations give them at least three business days before they have to disclose such transactions.
The information is important “because if you are an investor who has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a good time to buy the stock, you might decide to stay on the sidelines for a little longer after seeing which insiders decided to sell their stock,” CapStone Investments analyst Rory Maher said.
All told, investors who owned a combined 271 million Facebook shares could have sold their holdings yesterday with the expiration of a ban known as a lock-up period. The restrictions were imposed on a group of venture capitalists, companies and Silicon Valley cognoscente who invested in Facebook during its formative years and sold some of their holdings three months ago when the company went public at $38.
The highly anticipated IPO had valued the company at $104 billion, similar to those of Amazon.com Inc. and PepsiCo Inc.
The shares have plunged by nearly 50 percent since then amid concerns about whether Facebook is destined to become a passing fancy and worries about whether it will be able to sell more advertising on mobile devices as users gravitate there.
Trading
Facebook’ stock traded as low as $19.69 before bouncing back slightly. The shares closed yesterday at $19.87, down $1.33, or more than 6 percent. The previous low during the day was $19.82 and the previous low for a close was $20.04, both reached Aug. 2
More than 156 million shares were traded, more than five times the stock’s average volume over the past month. Trading in the overall market was lighter than usual.
The Facebook investors eligible to sell their shares yesterday included venture capital firms Accel Partners and Greylock Partners; investment banker Goldman Sachs Group; software maker Microsoft Corp.; Zynga Inc. CEO Marc Pincus; LinkedIn Corp. Chairman Reid Hoffman; and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.
If there was mass selling within this group, Facebook’s stock could decline further because the market would be flooded with nearly two-thirds more shares.
Given that most of these investors put their money into Facebook five to eight years ago, they probably were eager to sell, said Sam Hamadeh, the CEO of PrivCo, a research firm that follows privately held companies. He said:
A lot of people have been waiting. Facebook was expected to go public a long time ago.
Despite the sharp drop in Facebook’s market value during the past three months, the early investors can still reap huge windfalls by selling at the current price.
For instance, Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, the year CEO Mark Zuckerberg began the site in a Harvard dorm room.
After selling 16.8 million shares for $640 million at the time of the initial public offering in May, Thiel still owned nearly 28 million shares worth about $560 million at Thursday’s trading prices.
Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook in 2005. The firm sold nearly 58 million shares for $2.2 billion as part of Facebook’s IPO and still owned nearly 144 million shares worth about $2.9 billion.
It wasn’t known how many of those shares could have been sold Thursday, and whether any of them were.
Because those investors had put up little compared with the shares’ value today, “you can understand why they would want to take some of their money off the table now,” Maher said. “But at the same time, you have to wonder if they’re thinking that Facebook isn’t much of a bargain anymore.”
Hamadeh believes the venture capitalists who invested in Facebook realize it’s a “fool’s game” to wait for a better price on the stock.
On the flip side, other key investors seem unlikely to sell additional shares right away. Microsoft, which invested $240 million in Facebook in 2007, relies on Facebook’s social network to help bring more traffic to its Bing search engine, making it less likely that it would risk antagonizing Facebook executives by bailing out. The software company also doesn’t need the money, as it is already is sitting on $63 billion in cash.
The next test
The selling shackles will come off of an additional 1.66 billion locked-up Facebook shares during the next nine months to place more potential pressure on the stock. One of the biggest tests will come in November when about 1.2 billion insider shares will be eligible for sale.
The freed-up shares will include those owned by Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO and founder who sold 30 million shares for $1.1 billion in the May IPO to cover his taxes.
Other Internet companies that have gone public in the past year have been hit hard by the expiration of their lock-up periods.
Earlier this week, shares of online reviews service Angie’s List suffered their biggest one-day drop so far and closed at a new low following the expiration of a similar ban. The price dropped, even though there was no word on whether any of the major investors had dumped their shares.
LinkedIn, which runs a professional networking version of Facebook, also took a big hit when restrictions on insider selling lifted last November. Its shares sank to their trading low of $55.98 after the lock-up period expired, but have since rebounded strongly. The shares closed at $103.99 Thursday, more than twice its IPO price of $45.
Some investors believe Facebook’s stock price is nearing its low point, at least until the next lock-up periods end this fall.
Thanks Joe for the interesting article and thanks to the Journal for publishing something outside the norm.
Great article!
Banking Cartoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGk5ioEXlIM
Here’s a possible solution:
They should stop bankers from availing of limited liability. The limited liability was first introduced for companies, banks were explicitly excluded and for good reason!
Fractional reserve banking
If, for example a 1000 is deposited the bank is then allowed lend out 10,000 which it creates out of thin air and charges interest on. This is how they make money.
A run on the banks would bring the banking cartel crashing down.
…and they wouldn’t want that would they?
(There’d be no point in keeping politicians in their pockets then either!)
No, if a bank has €1,000 tier one capital it can lend say €10,000. The extra €9,000 is funded by a mix of customer deposits and inter bank borrowings. Bonds are frequently used to fund various tiers of capital.
The extra “money” is created because the end use borrower will momentarily have the loan deposited in his account, the Bank will have a loan asset on it’s books, the depositor will still have the money in his account and the lenders to the bank will have the monetary asset in thier accounts.
So the single loan transaction has, at this stage, trebled the money in supply. However that is only the beginning.
Things get really interesting when the customer uses the money to buy a house, his loan is securitised and sold on to other institutions, the inter bank lenders swap out their loans to either fix or float the interest or loan term and the buyer of the securitised loan buys a credit default swap to off load the loan risk. Then we look at what the person who sold the house does with the money….and so on and so on.
Before the crash in 2008, astute use of derivatives would create at least €1,000 in monetary assets from €5 of capital.
Ben
Explain to me why governments have passed laws allowing banks to create money out of thin air but with a cap ?
This is the whole basis of fractional reserve banking.
If it doesn’t happen then why are there laws saying how much banks can create????
Glen, the problem is that it is only the Banks and deposit taking institutions that are regulated. Investment businesses and hedge funds are not regulated at all and lenders who are not banks are only regulated by the Consumer Credit Acts.
This is a timely article, still useful even though it still has a number of misleading facts in it, but I cannot go into all the details here.
Customer deposits are a ‘liability’ of the Bank and do not fund anything. They neither lend reserves nor deposits nor are constrained by them. Even where reserve requirements are supposedly made, these are always some weeks later in their accounts & in practice have no effect on Banks’ ability to create money as loans.
Banks are constrained by Capital according to Basel rules.
But as Ben Gunn points out, the ability to sell on loans, leverage and use derivatives with fantasy Capital ‘risk weighting’ means that banks have been effectively unregulated in their ability to create new money as loans.
Add to this the fact that thru’ effectively leveraging, securitising and selling on most of their lending, they bear little or no responsibility for the risk of their loans, except for their current ‘inventory’ before they are sold on.
In the US, this created a particularly criminogenic environment and led to the very widespread ‘liars loans’ which former US regulator (who jailed around 1,000 bank execs in the 90s) William K Black has termed an endemic system of ‘control fraud’ operated by bank executives.
Broadly, the Irish banks & many others in Europe adopted the same pattern, or formula, that Black derived from his work jailing bankers in the mass US Savings&Loan fraud of the 80s/90s. It is a fraud perpetrated by executives upon the shareholders and customers of the bank as well as the general public who often end up having to cover the losses to prevent a complete collapse of the banking system.
Black explains all in his book ‘The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One’ and on his home blog here:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/
(Also a primary blog for MMT economics)
Black and many others know exactly how to properly regulate banking. In many respects a reversion to how banks used to operate before the last several decades where near all the regulation enacted following the disaster of the 29 crash & Great Depression was removed.
Obviously, providing that the bankers cannot continue to bribe wholesale the democratic process as they have & do now.
In short, Black and his MMT economics colleagues at the University of Missouri Kansas City (and elsewhere) propose that proper regulation of banking, including separation of retail/payments system banking and (haha) ‘Investment banking’, is perfectly possible with political will.
And there state there are good reasons for the smooth running and maintenance of (near) full employment of the real economy to allow such much more heavily restricted and monitored banks the facility to create new money as loans.
Anne Petifor and Warren Mosler offer critiques of the Martin Wolf/ positivemoney / Chicago Plan proposal on this basis here:
http://www.primeeconomics.org/?p=2629
http://moslereconomics.com/2014/04/25/comments-on-martin-wolfs-banking-article/
IMO, they are right. The crucial issue is the benefit of banks extensive network, localised loan risk assessment services (for lending they must be obliged to hold to maturity, not sell on) and perhaps most important the ability to provide new money to society in short and responsive time scales. Any ‘centralised’ (public) alternative cannot provide the timely & detailed service without which economic activity would be both hampered, and thru’ resulting money scarcity, be subject to unreasonably burdensome interest rates for borrowing ‘existing’ money.
MMT and positivemoney both propose that (sovereign fiat currency issuing) governments also use their facility to create debt free money to finance net fiscal spending, as required by the prevailing conditions of the real economy using the ‘Functional Finance’ principles developed by economist Abba Lerner.
Essentially, the main criteria determining whether a government net spends or taxes are whether stimulus is required to move toward (near) full employment and productive capacity… or a net tax position is needed (at or near full employment/productive capacity) in order to stem the risk of accelerating inflation.
The Euro system is deeply flawed and dysfunctional and would need significant reform to operate properly under such a system. But it is both possible and necessary to try to do it.
Necessary, because otherwise the Euro zone operates at a massive disadvantage to sovereign currency issuing states, even without those states operating MMT/Functional Finance. Witness the far higher unemployment and massive loss thru’ the consequent years of languishing under capacity of production in Euro vs comparable non-Euro countries.
This is a timely article, still useful even though it still has a number of misleading facts in it, but I cannot go into all the details here.
Customer deposits are a ‘liability’ of the Bank and do not fund anything. They neither lend reserves nor deposits nor are constrained by them. Even where reserve requirements are supposedly made, these are always some weeks later in their accounts & in practice have no effect on Banks’ ability to create money as loans.
Banks are constrained by Capital according to Basel rules.
But as Ben Gunn points out, the ability to sell on loans, leverage and use derivatives with fantasy Capital ‘risk weighting’ means that banks have been effectively unregulated in their ability to create new money as loans.
Add to this the fact that thru’ effectively leveraging, securitising and selling on most of their lending, they bear little or no responsibility for the risk of their loans, except for their current ‘inventory’ before they are sold on.
In the US, this created a particularly criminogenic environment and led to the very widespread ‘liars loans’ which former US regulator (who jailed around 1,000 bank execs in the 90s) William K Black has termed an endemic system of ‘control fraud’ operated by bank executives.
Broadly, the Irish banks & many others in Europe adopted the same pattern, or formula, that Black derived from his work jailing bankers in the mass US Savings&Loan fraud of the 80s/90s. It is a fraud perpetrated by executives upon the shareholders and customers of the bank as well as the general public who often end up having to cover the losses to prevent a complete collapse of the banking system.
Black explains all in his book ‘The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One’ and on his home blog here:
neweconomicperspectives.org/
(Also a primary blog for MMT economics)
Black and many others know exactly how to properly regulate banking. In many respects a reversion to how banks used to operate before the last several decades where near all the regulation enacted following the disaster of the 29 crash & Great Depression was removed.
Obviously, providing that the bankers cannot continue to bribe wholesale the democratic process as they have & do now.
In short, Black and his MMT economics colleagues at the University of Missouri Kansas City (and elsewhere) propose that proper regulation of banking, including separation of retail/payments system banking and (haha) ‘Investment banking’, is perfectly possible with political will.
And there state there are good reasons for the smooth running and maintenance of (near) full employment of the real economy to allow such much more heavily restricted and monitored banks the facility to create new money as loans.
Anne Petifor and Warren Mosler offer critiques of the Martin Wolf/ positivemoney / Chicago Plan proposal on this basis here:
http://www.primeeconomics.org/?p=2629
moslereconomics.com/2014/04/25/comments-on-martin-wolfs-banking-article/
IMO, they are right. The crucial issue is the benefit of banks extensive network, localised loan risk assessment services (for lending they must be obliged to hold to maturity, not sell on) and perhaps most important the ability to provide new money to society in short and responsive time scales. Any ‘centralised’ (public) alternative cannot provide the timely & detailed service without which economic activity would be both hampered, and thru’ resulting money scarcity, be subject to unreasonably burdensome interest rates for borrowing ‘existing’ money.
MMT and positivemoney both propose that (sovereign fiat currency issuing) governments also use their facility to create debt free money to finance net fiscal spending, as required by the prevailing conditions of the real economy using the ‘Functional Finance’ principles developed by economist Abba Lerner.
Essentially, the main criteria determining whether a government net spends or taxes are whether stimulus is required to move toward (near) full employment and productive capacity… or a net tax position is needed (at or near full employment/productive capacity) in order to stem the risk of accelerating inflation.
The Euro system is deeply flawed and dysfunctional and would need significant reform to operate properly under such a system. But it is both possible and necessary to try to do it.
Necessary, because otherwise the Euro zone operates at a massive disadvantage to sovereign currency issuing states, even without those states operating MMT/Functional Finance. Witness the far higher unemployment and massive loss thru’ the consequent years of languishing under capacity of production in Euro vs comparable non-Euro countries.
Sorry for the double post, the journal’s system screwing up :(
Errmmm banks are SUPPOSED to be regulated you mean.
Here’s another good article on the topic with some very interesting comments:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity
Your understanding of fractional reserve banking is laughable Glen. Which conspiracy source did it come from?
It’s the central bank that creates money out of thin air, but the process is controlled by providing that money in the form of debt that has to be re-paid with interest. Banks like AIB and BOI don’t create money out of thin air, they borrow some of it from the central bank, get some of it on deposit and borrow the rest from other banks.
You are a disgrace to that icon. Anonymous are not a bunch of conspiracy freaks who get their information from idiotic sources like you. They deal with real problems from real sources.
Mike Hall, on the ball. As usual!
Hi Jimbo,
Banks like AIB and BOI do indeed create the money they lend.
We have published a paper on exactly how the process unfolds and it’s available to read at:
http://sensiblemoney.ie/data/documents/How-Money-Is-Created-And-Destroyed.pdf
Or for anyone else reading who would like a layperson’s guide to the system read:
http://sensiblemoney.ie/data/documents/How-Banks-Create-and-Destroy-Money.pdf
To summarise, if you get a personal loan from a bank they would credit their ‘Deposits’ account and debit their ‘Debtors’ account. And that’s the process. In doing so banks do indeed create the bank-account money they lend.
It could be argued that prior to a bank being in a position to create the money for your loan they must first borrow some a different type of money, that of central-bank money. They can borrow this central-bank money from another bank, or from the central bank, However, they cannot lend out this type of money – they always create bank-account money when they issue a loan.
Jimbo
You are flat wrong. The Bank of England recently published this fact that commercial banks create money from thin air when they make a loan. Loans create new money, repayments of Principal then destroy that money.
They also put up a more ‘lay’ version on Youtube with their spokesman standing in the gold vaults at BoE. He is quite explicit – “… loans create deposits… ” and also “… some economics textbooks are incorrect… ” (as regards how money is created & the banking operations that follow on).
That last quote is a monumental understatement – nearly every economics textbook in use for the last several decades is flat wrong. Nor the spokesman bother to mention that the implications of this fact turn much of mainstream macro economics on its head. Most is complete and utter tripe. Which is why mainstream economists had not the vaguest gnats cock of clue that the financial crash was coming. Debt and banking was not included in their multi€billion ‘models’ and financial fraud was also ‘assumed’ away. Unemployment also requires the assumption that it is only ever a ‘leisure’ choice by perfectly rational, all knowing ‘representative agents’. And there are many other completely absurd assumptions underpinning the economics thinking of the mainstream. Pure claptrap, the lot of it. But, note, it all works perfectly funnel wealth upwards to the already wealthy in increasing amounts whilst peddling the laughable idea that it ‘trickles down’ to a deliberately nurtured and mislead gullible public.
Presumably since all these mainstream macro economists have entire careers invested in peddling pure BS fantasy, they having done nothing in over 6 years to address their own systemic failure.
None of this mainstream are fit to advise a banana republic let alone macro policy in our globalised economy. The not just unforeseen, but assumed impossible (“the Great Moderation” they all touted, haha), Financial crash and 6 yrs and counting of mass unemployment and no recovery. They are charlatans of the highest order.
Most of the big banks are far more powerful and rich than the countries they operate in as we have seen over recent years. Can’t see this ever happening but it’s a nice idea.
Hang on a minute. Govt already controls the total money supply by fixing last resort interest rates and imposing minimum capital ratios. Last time out, most govts made a pig’s mickey of this, while countries like Ireland simply gave up one of those tools to a foreign power. And the solution to this is … give more power to the government???
You’ve hit the nail on the head Emily again.
The premise here is that banks behave recklessly (which they have) and governments don’t (which is clearly incorrect).
In addition, this would increase opportunities and incentives for corruption and cronyism.
There is evidence that the opposite scenario, free banking- where banks are treated as ordinary companies, provides a much more stable banking system. In other words, if they know they won’t be bailed out they will behave more responsibly. Canada had a free banking system until after the great depression. None of its banks failed.
Spot on Emily, things are bad now but hand over more control to the government and they’d be a hell of a lot worse. Think about it, look at they type of people who make up the government. Not one of them has a clue how to handle money. A load of ex school teachers and civil servants who’ve worked for years to overspend their budgets so they get more money next time.
Emily, it’s not correct to say that Governments can control the money supply, or indeed even influence it much thru’ the setting of a target minimum interest rate (via their Central Bank).
See the recent statements (& a useful short video) from the Bank of England on this common misunderstanding, here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/where-does-money-come-from-2014-4
Good point Expert.
Its bad enough that you have to go to your local fg/lab constituency office on bended knee to get your mother a hip operation or to secure planning permission to extend your home. Imagine crawling to your local TD to get a mortgage or student loan.
SME’s securing operating capital based on the generosity of political “donations”.
It’s like Charlie Haughey’s wet dream.
Banks are giant pyramid schemes… simple as. We loathe them and need them.
True. Also, the monetary system is the real problem. What’s the alternative though?
We loathe them and need them.”
No – u don’t need them . there are other institution – but the banks get money for near 0% Interest – and use this for gambling – and if the gambling fails – they are bailed out – or in the future bailed in .
Jim tell me another institution that I can borrow from and get my wages put in. Don’t say the credit union.
Here’s a possible alternative Mark:
Banks have too much power. One sensible first step in controlling how they behave would be for the government to return to the older system of paying salaries, pensions, benefits, etc directly to individuals rather than to their bank accounts. This hands control of their money back to the individual who can then decide whether or not to use the banks !
In an ideal world Michael.. I keep a bit of money in a bank account in Ireland just for sending money to my parents the odd time or withdrawing euros when I’m home the odd time. That Bank is AIB, every time I look at my account they have taken small fees here and there for this and that, In england some banks don’t charge transaction fees, why the f@ck do they charge in Ireland? can anyone tell me..Its actually gone too expensive for me to bank with Aib so I’m finally removing myself from their clutches. Its daylight robbery. Having banked with them for 15 years you would think they’d offer some sort of time incentive for years of being a customer. Nope, In the end greed is greed is greed.
Great Article!
“Loose screw” apt words indeed, and I would add to that”loose cannons”.
I mean when you consider management policy in Banking, for many years before the Crash, was not only to “create”/ loan out multiples of their deposit bases, but also to borrow billions more, short- term, and in turn chuck it out to a property developer to pay way over the odds for a dump of a site somewhere, as a speculative gamble.
What is most disturbing now is that, following the banking crash” these “loose cannons” have ridden off into the sunset with their fat retirement packages, and gold-plated pensions, leaving the rest if us to clean up their glorious mess. Probably something that will take 100 years or more to achieve.
This little wonder there’s revolution in the air.
Every thing that touches us is a con.
Right then Ted…..
I’m off to the bank to withdraw my savings.
Wouldn’t go down well in Cork. Banning De Banks???
Boi!
The current system is inherently flawed. There will never be enough money in circulation to pay off all the debt.
“I care not what puppet is placed onthe throne of England to rule the Empire, … The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire.And I control the money supply.”by Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild.
This is the reason we are where we are today. Certain wealthy elite Banking family lines control the world’s wealth and pretty much everything else.
Good idea but its never gonna happen. Banks are the most powerful institutions on the planet. They surpassed the catholic church about 60 years ago. Barack obama has the most powerful army on the planet, guess who the main contributors to his election campaign were? Jp morgan chase bank and goldman sachs. They were also the main contributors to his rival, sneaky buggers.
Well said, don’t forget the Israeli lobby AIPAC.
Ah, now you’re getting to the real issue ;)
Bank Fraud is one of Biggest industries on planet and many banks in UK and US and other counties do it – and if a govt says ” that’s wrong ” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- but if they do –
they would /have been told -” we will bring the whole system down if u touch us ”.
So the banks get away with robbery and their endless Rehypothecation .
Also THe EU has passed laws ensuring bail -ins
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/financial-services/eu-agrees-bail-in-rules-for-deposits-1.1626033
and don’t worry that figure of €100,000 is I am sure is” flexible ”.
The other way out of the mess banks have created is just to shoot corrupt bankers as in Vietnam and China – that might put manners on those who are left .
Perhaps someone can solve something that has always bothered me about banks ‘creating money’ by lending, why do banks get into trouble when there is a crisis like we had? If lots of the people they lent money to start defaulting, why is that a crisis for the bank if they invented the money?
I understand why it is a problem if the bank borrowed the money they lent out elsewhere, or used deposits, but if they ‘created’ the money out of thin air, who do they owe it to?
Banks according to the Rules of Monopoly
Yes if credit cards are used say 100 euro is borrowed that exponentially increases the amount the bank can lend out ,It’s a crazy situation and its an ingenious way for the banks to legally rob people.
This is timely given that the ECB is running stress testing exercises.
Perhaps these stress tests will be instrumental in creating a new crisis. I expect the results of the tests will require fresh thinking at ECB level and that the rules of fractional reserve will be changed.
I stopped reading after this line ….”The typical person probably thinks about a bank the way it’s depicted in the movie ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. Patronizing and condescending to say the very least – especially to someone who stopping using corrupt Banks over 25 years ago.
Best piece of education on banking
I’ve read. I thank your correspondent
Now to digest it
Banning the banks controlled by the elites is a good idea – giving money creation power to governments who are representing the elite is not the answer. We will still need banks in the short term at least – however they should simply be community controlled – run by the people for the people. Our constitution allows us to self-govern and thats what should happen – party politicians are part of the elite connected to banking and the IMF who enforced austerity on us – by essentially putting a gun to our previous leaders heads. Either way our leaders would have done what they wanted anyway since they are part of the club. Hence the fact that Ireland has paid for 42% of EU banking debt at €9000 per capita and 25% of GDP – compared to the next biggest Germany at €491 per capita and only 1.5% of GDP. http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/banking-crisis-bill-ireland-755464-Jan2013/
Ideas similar to the gift economy or ubuntu contributionism are the best long term solution – yes they are ideal, but a moneyless society completely removes the problem of greed and it is workable in terms of exchange of skills and goods based on necessity and sharing of each persons strengths. To get there on a national level would require major societal mobilisation/restructuring so intermediate systems like mutual credit exchange systems could work to bridge the gap. Not sure about a national currency solution – I think the EU investment elite would just try to destroy an Irish currency as punishment for leaving.
Either way yes we should take our money out of elite controlled banks and put it in our own hands or in locally controlled banking systems and as Michael G O Reilly said – pay salaries directly to people – not to banks. That arrangement is just a collusion between big business and banks to take all control away from people.
As long as we keep using banks and as long as we don’t have our own currency or exchange systems – we have no power to control policy and they will continue screwing us for every last penny.
But the very least we should do is vote non-party in the upcoming elections. e.g.http://peoplescandidates.ie/ or similar.
The fact that the irish people have accepted paying 42% of eu bank debts is a disgrace – we should be tearing down the walls of government not sitting on our asses talking about what we can’t do!
have your say