'The luck of the Irish has run out.. the primary problem is that the European model of providing cradle-to-grave entitlements is no longer sustainable"

So Bill O'Reilly diagnoses the Irish financial meltdown in his weekly column.

It is a classic right-wing analysis of what allegedly happened.

Unfortunately, it is completely wrong.

Ireland had no great debt until it assumed the $100 billion or so that the banking system delivered to it when it collapsed.

By socializing that debt, in other words, making the taxpayer responsible for it not the greedy and out of control bankers, Ireland then hit the skids.

But it was a capitalism problem to begin with Bill, not a socialist problem.

The banks were like 'Girls Gone Wild' loaning money from European banks then reloaning it to ever more gullible Irish clients who spent and spent and built and built until.....

Well you know what happened next.

Now the banks, who took all the rewards want to avoid the risk too and stick the taxpayers with the bills.

And gullible Ireland has gone along with the IMF in making sure that it is all repaid with the bankers covered.

There is a reason why countries like Canada and Australia did not fall into this near economic collapse like Ireland, the U.S. and other countries did.

They had good government oversight of their banks.

That may be a form of socialism Bill, but I'd gladly undertake it if it made the ordinary taxpayer keep his money and stop it falling into the hands of greedy bankers as is happening in Ireland.