In the good old Soviet days goods' prices were held down artificially but the goods were not there. The population accumulated useless cash unwillingly. The government tried to capture these involuntary savings by making obligatory the purchase of government bonds. Those were not savings but a form of taxation. However the Soviet government never got round to actually confiscating excess cash except a couple of times in the 1950s by enforcing a currency conversion at progressively more punitive rates for prices, bank accounts, and cash. As they used to say, under full Communism there would still be money for some but not for others.
The European Union has succeeded in reconstructing Soviet-type confiscation of hard-earned savings because setting limits to cash withdrawals have turned part of household savings into forced involuntary savings. In Cyprus, by then skimming depositors' accounts at a very high rate, they have been recognised by Medvedev (not unnaturally) for what they are. There is no difference between Soviet practice then and European Union practice today.
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Yes - a great day. The UK celebrates the end of 380 years of press freedom, and the EU makes it clear that the Bank Deposit Guarantee scheme isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Trouble ahead
Once we put our money into a bank it's loaned to them Elby. There used to be an order of execution once though and depositors were last in line to be shot.
I hadn't been following the press freedom stuff - couldn't believe it was going anywhere. Should have recognised it was a conformity with EU practice thingy. Sigh. So of course it went through.
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