“No, in a perfect world I’d get 3% real interest from parking my idle ca$h at the Bank.”
Absolutely, that is how it once was. Back when we were actually a prosperous nation.
For me, that’s what I experienced as a 3rd grader in the later 50s.
We had a monthly?/biweekly? banking exercise with our kid accounts at the Erie County Savings Bank in the classroom.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_County_Savings_Bank]
The 50s had issues, but in general, as a kid, it was GREAT!