Actually they changed the laws so that it is no longer your money any longer, but a debt that the bank owes to you.
That's not a change, that's the whole point of banks.
The model is:
1) You lend your money to the band, ie you trade your money for a debt.
2) They then lend the money to someone else. At that point its no longer the bank's money either.
3) Hopefully the someone else pays the debt back with money, and the bank can pay your debt back with money.
4) Failing that maybe some kind taxpayer will pay to make up the difference.
5) Failing that the people who lost your money hope you'll blame the whole thing on the European Commission.
Well put. People have been having their forutnes wiped out in bank collapses for hundreds of years now. Many southern plantation owners had their bank accounts confiscated and also all had to free their slaves without compensation. In the 1920's we had banks get wiped out from investing in stock (which brough the first regulations seperating "investment banks" and "commercial banks"). Today we have the housing bubble and bad morgages killing off banks.
When a bank gets crushed, for whatever reason, your deposits get hit too. Most people don't get a cent back unless the government steps in and refunds a minimum amount out of taxpayer money. This is a rare instance where its that very same government who caused the problem in the first place. *To be fair its not just the governments fault here. This bank took on a lot of really bad debt it can't pay back*