Some straight forward common sense definitions:
1. A bank is a large bunch of folks that take deposits from ordinary people, pay the ordinary people a small interest in return, then make a higher return from the massed deposits/capital. Or... that's what the idea was a long time ago. Now the banks are losing your money instead of making more. This is not a good plan for you, only for the bank officers and owners.
2. A sovereign is some nation, like Greece or Italy for example, that pays its citizens lots of money; however, the soverigns take in less money than they receive. This is called deficit spending in the beginning and later it's called simple default, i.e. the sovereign does not plan to pay its debts.
3. When you or I don't pay off a loan, we are said to have defaulted and our bank-originated "credit score" decreases. When a bank defaults, it's called a quantitative easing mistake and everybody in the bank gets paid off for the so-called tax-payer mistake of not "supporting" the bank.
In 2008, the US tax payers paid the banks lots of money so that the banks wouldn't completely collapse. Some of that money has been repaid.
We have even a worse problem with the "banks" now in 2011. You need to remove your money from banks, put it in a secret hole in your back yard, and your money will be much more safe and will earn much more real-interest than the negative-interest the bank will pay you.
Do not get fooled again.
