An Irish Financial Sanity Check

The Alphaville blog on the Financial Times makes a very important point:

"until your local stock market can adequately price one of your biggest banks, your local finance sector still has some way to go."

It draws attention to the massively inflated valuation of AIB on the Irish Stock Exchange.

 This follows a report in today's Irish Times, that Ireland is still the 5th most expensive country in the EU, with prices 15% above the European average.  Ireland is the 11th wealthiest country in the EU (based on GNI, a more reflective index than GDP in Ireland's case), at 5% above the European average.

The country's problems are so endemic, so culturally embedded and its politics and constitutional system so stunted, that it is going to take decades, if ever, for Ireland to fully put its house in order.

Ireland may have left the bailout, but it still has a heck of a long way to go.  I wish the country well, but sure as hell am glad I am not there any more.