Bank runs are not what they used to be. Technology has seen to that. Instead of queues around the block with frightened depositors clutching their account details, the mere press of a few buttons on the keypad can send money winging its way towards a safe haven.
That may be Germany or perhaps a London bank, since we remain so blessedly outside the eurozone. The term 'capital transfer' is preferred to a bank run, so full memories may be of the 1930s and the American crash.
You need not doubt that a run has started in the South European countries, with the larger depositors leading the way.
It is no good a 'spokesman' for Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem denying that he meant what he said about Cyprus providing the template for other 'rescues' in the eurozone.
The IMF, the European Central Bank and the eurozone finance ministers sat long hours into the night over the weekend to formulate the smash-and-grab scheme for Cyprus.
They knew what they were doing and will have discussed the obvious risk of contagion to the point of exhaustion.
In the end they decided this was slight until, that is, the Dutchman with the unpronounceable name made his off-the-cuff remarks - or blurted out the truth, as others might put it. He is - quite a thought - chairman of the eurozone finance ministers group! Exactly how much this has already cost banks in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece and will yet cost them in the future is not known.
But it will be eventually, when these banks publish their results, which were promising to be pretty bad anyway.
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Many of them have been crippled by buying - under official pressure - their own government's bonds. So we come to the question we must ask, borrowing Churchill's famous phrase: Is this the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?
The Brussels-Berlin axis has tried to convince everyone that the euro has been through its harshest trials and a way has been found to keep the system going even in the harshest circumstances.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is 'very pleased' by the agreement for Cyprus.
But we have yet to see a single bank in Cyprus reopen. They are all afraid of the disorder which may follow.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is 'very pleased' by the agreement for CyprusThe reality is that the weakness of the system, both economic and political, has been exposed. It will not be long before the next crisis emerges - weeks, months or merely days.
Italy remains a strong candidate for crisis. It is having difficulty even forming a government, let alone convincing its creditors it has a serious plan for rescuing its economy.
A game of gesture politicsRace is a handy little word, a mere four letters long and ideal for headlines in the lazier publications. And racism is only six characters.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is a longer word which also demands a more complex definition. Which is a pity since it, not racism, is at the heart of the present confusion about immigration and its menace. The terror of being branded 'racist' by the media has stifled adult debate in Britain for half a century.
You have to marvel at the way fashionable opinion-formers have always been free to set the agenda. David Cameron has been a great demoniser of 'racism' wherever his inquisitors have been able to sniff it out.
Foolishly, he has tried to apply the label to UKIP - advancing in the polls and a serious threat to numerous nervous Tory MPs.
David Cameron has been a great demoniser of 'racism' wherever his inquisitors have been able to sniff it outSo here we are in what is essentially a crisis of nationalism which Cameron is unequipped to deal with. We have known for years that Romanians and Bulgarians would be free next January to come to Britain. The Tory leadership did not make a great fuss about this at the time.
All he and the other main political parties can do is flail around and talk about ensuring that we are not a soft touch for immigrants. Clearly we are. Clearly we will continue to be. EU laws demand that we must offer citizens of other community nations equal benefits. Already we have doctors protesting that it is no part of their duty to track down the origins of their patients.
Handing over control of the borders to the Home Office is a gesture. Insofar as it means better control of our borders, it will take a long time before the effect, if any, is felt.
Labour is now nervously circling the issue, conscious that inaction could lose a lot of votes. But let us be fair to the party.
It may have to back up the Prime Minister's flimsy plans for short-term reasons. But Labour has been an essentially pro-immigration party ever since the issue raised its head in the late 1950s. It is reckoned that virtually all African or Caribbean arrivals vote Labour. In the case of Asians it is about 60 per cent.
The politics of impoverished Romanians and Bulgarians is not known yet. But we can bet on a strong likelihood that they will incline to Labour. The party has its principles, the chief of which is to get into power.
