← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 14300 | Posts: 16 | Started: 2004-06-23
2004-06-23 10:58 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.bchomerule.com/page4_f_a.htm] Three Articles on Usury[/URL]
The first is by George Goyder, and the second by Hillaire Belloc, and the third by the Editor of the Saint George Educational Trust.
"The problem of usury is one with which humans have grappled from ancient time. The great body of medieval teaching on usury, known as the canon law, was the first systematic attempt to apply the principles of right and wrong to the economic sphere.
According to the medieval view, usury is present in any contract or loan which calls for a fixed rate of gain without corresponding risk to the lender.
To lend money on security and to demand interest as well as the return of the principal is usury.
Where, however, loans were made for productive use rather than for immediate consumption, the lender might feel it a hardship to deprive himself of the opportunity to employ his resources in other profitable ways.
These two ancient justifications for taking interest on loans may be re-stated in modern terms as payment to the lender for risk and cost.
Usury
USURY is a topic which modern people have almost entirely forgotten, and which you will not find mentioned in any book on Economics that I know. Yet its vital importance was recognised throughout all history until quite lately, and it is already forcing itself upon modern people's notice whether they like it or not. So it is as well to understand it, for it is going to be discussed widely in the near future.
All codes of law and all writers on morals from the beginning of anything we know about human society have denounced as wrong the practice of Usury.
They have recognised that this practice does grave harm to the State and to society as a whole, and must, therefore, as far as possible, be forbidden.
Now what is Usury, and why does it thus do harm?
Modem people have so far forgotten this exceedingly important matter that they have come to use the word "usury" loosely for "the taking of high interest upon a loan. " That is very muddled thinking indeed, as you will see in a moment. The character of Usury has nothing to do with the taking of high or low interest. It is concerned with something quite different.
Usury is the taking of any interest whatever upon an UNPRODUCTIVE loan.
A man comes to you and says: "Lend me this piece of capital which you possess" (for instance, a ship, and stores of food with which to feed the sailors during the voyage of the ship). "Using this piece of capital to transport the surplus goods from this country over the sea and to bring back foreign goods which we need here I shall make a profit so large that I can exchange it for at least one hundred tons of wheat. The voyage there and back will take a year."
You naturally answer: "It is all very well for you to make a profit of one hundred tons of wheat in one year by the use of my ship and of my stores of food for sailors who work the ship, but what about me ? I grant you ought to have part of this profit for yourself, as you are taking all the trouble. But I ought to have some, because the ship and stores of food are mine; and unless I lent them to you (since you have none of your own) you would not be able to make that profit by trading of which you speak. Let us go half shares. You shall have fifty tons of wheat and I will take fifty, out of the total profit of one hundred tons.
The man who proposed to borrow our ship agrees. The bargain is struck, and when the year is over you make a fifty tons profit of wheat on your capital.
That is the earning of interest on a productive loan.
There is nothing morally wrong about that transaction at all. It does no one any harm. It does not weaken the State or society, or even hurt any individual. There is a sheer gain due to wise exchange (which is equivalent to production); everybody is benefited - you that own the capital, the man who uses it, and all society, which benefits by the foreign exchange. Supposing your ship and stores of food were worth a hundred tons of wheat, then your profit of fifty tons of wheat is a profit of fifty per cent, which is very high indeed. But you have a perfect right to it: your capital has produced a real increase of wealth to that extent. If your capital be worth ten times as much, then your profit is only five per cent instead of fifty. But your moral right to the fifty per cent is just as great as your moral right to the five per cent. No one can blame you, and you are doing no harm.
Now supposing that, instead of coming to ask you for the loan of your ship, the man came and asked you for the loan of a sum of money which you happened to have by you and which would be sufficient to buy and stock the ship. It is clear that the transaction remains exactly the same. The loan is productive. He makes a true profit, that is, there is a real increase of wealth for the community, and you and he have a right to take your shares out of it you because you are the owner of the capital, and he because he took the trouble of organising and overlooking the expedition.
These are examples of profit on a productive loan.
Now suppose a man to come to you if you were a baker and say: "Lend me half a dozen loaves. My family have no bread and I cannot see my way to earning anything for a day or two. But when I begin to earn I will get another half dozen loaves and see that you are not out of pocket. " Then if you were to reply: 'I will not let you have half a dozen loaves on those terms. I will let you owe me the bread for a month if you like, but at the end of the month you must give me back seven loaves": that would be usury.
The man is not using the loan productively: he is consuming the loaves immediately. No more wealth is created by the act. The world is not the richer, nor are you the richer, nor is society in general the richer. No more wealth at all has appeared through the transaction. Therefore the extra loaf that you are claiming is claimed out of nothing. It has to come out of the wealth of the community - in this particular case out of the wealth of the man who borrowed the loaves - instead of coming out of an increment or excess or new wealth. That is why usury is called "usury" - which means: "wearing down", "gradually dilapidating.
It is clear that if the whole world practised usury and nothing but usury, if wealth were never lent to be used productively, but only to be consumed unproductively, and yet were to demand interest on the unproductive transaction, then the wealth that was lent would soon eat up all the other wealth in the community until you came to a situation in which there was no more to take. Everyone would be ruined except those who lent; then these, having no more blood to suck, would die themselves, and society would end.
As in the case of the ship, it matters not in the least whether the actual thing, the loaves of bread, are lent, or money is lent with which to buy them. The test is whether the loan is productive or not. The intention of Usury is present when the money is lent at interest on what the lender KNOWS will be an unproductive purpose, and the actual practice of usury is present when the loan, having as a fact been used unproductively, interest is none the less demanded.
As in every other case of right and wrong whatsoever, there is, of course, a broad margin in which it is very difficult to draw the line. A man guilty of usury and trying to excuse himself might say, even in the case of food lent to a starving man: "The loan may not look directly productive, but indirectly it was productive, for it saved the man's life and thus later on he was able to work and produce wealth."
The other way about (though there is not much danger of that nowadays), a man trying to get out of interest on a productive loan might say in many cases: "The loan was not really productive. It is true I made a profit on it, but that profit was not additional wealth for the Community. It only represented what I got out of somebody else on a bargain.
In this margin. of uncertainty we have only common sense to guide us, as in every other similar case. We know pretty well in each particular example we come across whether a loan is productive of not; whether we are borrowing or lending for a productive purpose, or for a charitable or luxurious one, or for one in every way unproductive.
The proof that this feeling about usury is right is to be found in the private conduct of individuals in their social relations. If a poor man in distress goes to a rich friend and borrows ten pounds, he pays it back when he can; and the rich man would think it dishonourable to charge interest. But if a man borrowed ten pounds of one for the purpose of doing something which was likely to increase its value, and we knew that this was his purpose, we should have a perfect right to share the results with him, and no one would think the claim dishonorable.
Usury, then, is essentially a claim to increment, or extra wealth, which is not there to be claimed. It is a practice which diminishes the capital wealth of the needy and eats it up to the profit of the lender - so that, if Usury go unchecked, it must end in the absorption of all private property into the hands of a few money brokers.
Now, these things being so, the nature of usury being pretty clear, and both the moral wrong of it and the injury it does to society being equally clear, how is it that the modern world for so long forgot all about it, and how is it that it is forcing itself upon the attention of the modem world again in spite of that forgetfulness?
I will answer both of those questions.
The wrong and the very nature of usury came to be forgotten with the great expansion of financial dealings which arose in the middle and end of the seventeenth century - that is, about 250 years ago - in Europe. In the simpler times, when commercial transactions were open and upon a comparatively small scale, and done between men who knew each other, you could pretty usually tell, as you can in private life, whether a loan were a loan required for a productive or an unproductive purpose. The burden of proof lay upon the lender. It was no excuse in lending a man money to say: ' I did not know what he wanted to do with it, so I charged him 10 per cent, thinking that very probably he was going to use it productively." The courts of justice would not admit such a plea, and they were quite right. For under the simple conditions of the old days the judge would answer: "It was your business to know. A man does not come borrowing money unless he is in either personal necessity or has some productive scheme for which he wants to use the money. If you thought it was a productive scheme you would certainly have asked him about it in order to share the profits, and the fact that you did not trouble to find out whether it were productive or not shows that you are indifferent to the wrong of usury, and willing to do that wrong under the pretence that it was not your business to inquire. "
The attitude of the law on money-lending in the old days was very much what it is to-day with regard to certain poisonous chemicals which may be used well or ill. The seller of those chemicals has to ask what they are going to be used for, and is responsible if he fails to inquire. In the same way the old Christian law said a lender was bound to find out if his loan were intended for production or not. If the law had not done this, then usury would have been universal and would have eaten up the State, to the profit of the few people who lent out their money, as it is doing now.
But as trade became more and more complicated and much larger and lost its personal character, as the banking system arose on a large scale and great companies with any number of shareholders, and as it became impossible to lay the weight of proof upon the lender - when, indeed, most lenders could not know for what their money was being lent, but only that they had put it into some financial institution with the object of increasing it - then the opportunity for Usury came in, and soon permeated all commerce.
Suppose a man to-day, for instance, to put money into an Insurance Company. It pays him, let us say, 5 per cent. interest on his money. He does not know, and cannot know - no one can know - exactly how that particular bit of money is being used. It is merged in the whole lump of the funds the Insurance Company has to deal with. A great deal of it will be used productively. It will go to the purchase of steam engines and stores of food, ships, and so on, which in use increase the wealth of the world; and the money spent in buying these things has a perfect right to profit and does no harm to anyone by taking profit. But a certain proportion will be used unproductively. The original investor knows nothing about that, and even the managers of the company know nothing about it.
A client comes to them and says: "I want a loan of a thousand pounds. They are quite unable under modem conditions, to go into an examination of what he is going to do with it. He gives security and gets his loan. He may be a man in distress who gets it in order to pay his debts, or he may be a man who is going to start a business. The company cannot go into that. It has to make a general rule of so much interest upon what it lends, under the implied supposition, of course, that the loan is normally productive. But the borrower can use it unproductively, and often does and intends to do so.
Thus, with a very large volume of impersonal business, the presence of usury is inevitable. But though inevitable, and though therefore the practice of it, being indirect and distant, cannot be imputed to this man or that, usury inevitably produces its disastrous effects, and the modem world is at last coming to feel those effects very sharply.
A few pence lent out at usury some twenty centuries ago would amount now, at compound interest, to more wealth than there is in the whole world, which is a sufficient proof that usury is unjust and, as a permanent trade method, impossible.
The large proportion of usurious payments which are now being made on account of the impersonal and indirect character of nearly all transactions, is beginning to lay such a burden upon the world as a whole that there is danger of a breakdown.
If you keep on taking wealth as though from an increase, when really there is no increase out of which that wealth can come, the process must sooner or later, come to an end. It is as though you were to claim a hundred bushels of apples every year from an orchard after the orchard had ceased to bear, or as though you were to claim a daily supply of water from a spring which had dried up. The man who would have to pay the apples would have to get them as best he could, but by the time the claim was being made on all the orchards of the world, by the time that usury was asking a million bushels of apples a year, though only half a million were being produced, there would be a jam. The interest would not be forthcoming, and the machinery for collecting it would stop working. Long before it actually stopped of course, people would find increasing difficulty in getting their interest and increasing trouble would appear in all the commercial world.
Now that is exactly what is beginning to happen to-day after about two centuries of usury and one century of unrestricted usury. So far we have got out of it by all manner of makeshifts. Those who have borrowed the money and have promised to pay, say, 5 per cent., are allowed to change and to pay only 2.5 per cent. Or, by the process of debasing currency, which I described earlier in this book, the value of the money is changed, so that a man who has been set down to pay, say, a hundred sheep a year, is really only paying 30 or 50 sheep a year.
A more drastic method is the method of writing off loans altogether simply saying: "I simply cannot get my interest, so I must stop asking for it." That is what happens when a Government goes bankrupt, as the Government of Germany has done. If you look at the usury created by the Great War (1914), you will see this kind of thing going on on all sides. The Governments that were fighting borrowed money from individuals and promised to pay interest upon it. Most of that money was not used productively: It was used for buying wheat and metal, and machinery and the rest, but the wheat was not used to feed workmen who were producing more wealth. It was used to feed soldiers who were producing no wealth, and so were the ships and the metal and the machinery, etc. Therefore when the individuals who had lent the money began collecting from the Government interest upon what they had lent they were asking every year for wealth which simply was not there, and the Governments have got out of their promise to pay a usurious interest in all sorts of ways - some by repudiating, that is, saying that they would not pay (the Russians have done that), others by debasing currency in various degrees. The English Government has cut down what it promised to pay to about half, and by taxing this it has further reduced it to rather less than a third. The French Government, by inflation and by taxation have reduced it much more - to less than a fourth, or perhaps more like a sixth or an eighth.
The Germans have reduced it by inflation to pretty well nothing, which is the same really as repudiating the debt altogether.
So what we see in a general survey is this: -
Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society, because it is the claim for an increase of wealth which is not really present at all. It is trying to get something where there is nothing out of which that something can be paid.
This action must therefore progressively and increasingly soak up the wealth which men produce into the hands of those who lend money, until at last all the wealth is so soaked up and the process comes to an end.
That is what has happened in the case of the modern world, largely through unproductive expenditure on war, which expenditure has been met by borrowing money and promising interest upon it although the money was not producing any further wealth.
The modem world has therefore reached a limit in this process and the future of usurious investment is in doubt.
Though these conclusions are perfectly clear, it is unfortunately not possible to say that this or that is a way out of our difficulties; that by this or that law we can stop usury in the future and can go back to healthier conditions. Trade is still spread all over the world. It is still impersonal and money continues to be lent out at interest unproductively, with the recurring necessity of repaying the debt and failing to keep up payments which have been promised. Things will not get right again in this respect until society becomes as simple as it used be, and we shall have to go through a pretty bad time before we get back to that.
Usury
Language is a funny thing. Although we tend to think of it as something that doesn't really change, the reality is different. Words come and go, and meanings change with the passage of time. One example, and a vital one at that, is the word usury.
Usury is not a word that falls from the lips of the ordinary Man-in-the-Street on a regular basis, although s/he believes that he has a rough idea of its meaning. He believes the dictionary meaning - "the practice of lending money at exorbitant interest, especially at a rate that is higher than legal."
But people must wake up to the fact that Usury is not a subject best left to students of medieval history or to philosophers, but is a topic that should be studied by everyone, because it affects each and every person on the planet today. You can ignore it if you wish, as you can ignore the progress of cancer in your body, but ignorance will not stop you from suffering the evil results. Usury, like cancer, kills. The latter kills the individual. The former kills societies.
So let's look at what usury is. First and foremost, grasp this fact: Usury has nothing to do with the rate of interest at all, be it high or low. You can have an interest rate of 100% - and most people would agree that that is exorbitant - which is NOT usurious, while you could have an interest rate of 0.5% - and most people would agree that this is very low, perhaps unbelievably low in our age - which would be complete usury and which, during the Middle Ages would have had you excommunicated, and even in English Courts in the 18th century had you sent to prison. This will seem paradoxical until you understand that usury is the taking of any interest at all on a loan that is not productive.
This means that for a loan to be non-usurious it must be used in such a way that it generates new wealth, and from this new wealth the lender of the money gets a percentage, which is his profit. This is only right and fair. But if the money is used in such a way that it generates no new wealth, but bears a burden of interest, be it high or low, it is usury.
Let's look at what this means in the modern context. What about that "holiday of a lifetime, thanks to a bank loan", or "those presents, bought with a credit card", or "your new car, bought on installments", or "your nice home, with the 25 year mortgage" ? All Usury.
Shocked ? Think about this: that it was calculated that as recently as 1989, the average person was spending nearly 80% of his income, directly ot indirectly, on usurious payments. In other words our society is in the grip of an evil that has been condemned from the earliest recorded times. Today it is in a form so refined that most people do not even know it.
Does being anti-usury mean, therefore, that we cannot own houses, or buy toys for children, or go on holiday ? or do the 1001 things that all do regularly ? Not at all. It is quite the reverse, because in a system free of usury, prosperity grows and expands to the benefit of all - except bankers, and Stock Exchange swindlers, and loan sharks, and speculators. In other words, a usury-free society is one in which 99% of the people gain at the expense of the 1% who exploit; while a usury-dominated society means working for the interests of the 1%, and suffering all kinds of hardships to make ends meet.
What is this "national debt" of which we often hear, but know little about ? Has it ever ocurred to you that it is found to be unusual to have a national debt when you study history ? Did you know that from 1931 until 1974 Portugal had no national debt at all because it followed, between those dates, a usury-free system ?
The National Debt is largely government debt built up over the centuries because of usury. At any given time some 90% or more of the debt is usurious. Take, for example, the War loans raised by the British government during the First World War to finance those battleships which were lost in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 - eighty years on we are still paying interest to the bankers who supplied most of the 'money'. Or what about the fact that our taxes are still paying a European banking family interest on a loan of a few thousand pounds to the government for a war fought in the 18th century ? So if you have ever wondered why services are being cut back, or why taxes, direct and indirect, are constantly taking money out of your purse, or why there is no investment capital available for small and medium sized businesses, look no further. The answer lies in the fact of usury. But no political figure, and no journalist, and no "truth-seeker" is prepared to say the word, because he knows it would be the end of his career.
Why ? Because when you grasp the essential message of usury - which involves the creation of money from nothing - and how it works in the modern world, you will understand that booms and depressions, and inflation and deflation,are not freak events, but events that can be scientifically predicted, and even caused by a handful of mega-financiers.
Why will no one speak out ? Quite simply, fear. Ask any of your friendly bank managers over the age of 60, who remember the times when the true meaning of usury was still known in certain quarters, about the subject of usury, and you will see fear enter the face of a man who only seconds earlier looked so powerful across his leather-topped desk. Fear for career, for his family and their future. Yes, the truth is known, but who is going to be David against the Goliath that usury has become ? Or do we have to wait until Goliath falls over once his weight has become too much to bear ? In that case we will have to put society together again - and how much pain, suffering, misery, and death will that necessitate ? And will it even be possible ?
Maybe all this is exaggerated ? Maybe the figures show differently ? All right, let's look at the figures. In 1980, according to Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Maurice Allais, the Foreign Exchange Market registered $94 trillion. That means in simple terms - money making money, financial speculation, usury. By 1986 this had risen to $193 trillion. So in just six years it has almost doubled in volume. But then look in 1989, just three years later - it has become $420 trillion. In other words, in just nine years - and you remember the 1980's, don't you, when it was "time to get tough", and institute "austerity programs" to curb public spending, and mortgage interest rates went up to 20% - by that time the money markets, the focus of international usury, had grown by well over 400%. Note, too, that the rate of increase of speculation is growing ever more rapidly. Between 1980 and 1986 it grew by nearly 100%, yet in half that time - 1986-1989 - it has grown by over 200%.
Yet when we look at international trade during the same nine-year period - that is, the distribution and exchange of real goods and services - we find that they have grown from $7.6 billion to just $12.4 billion - not even doubled.
So usury is growing both in volume and proportion, while real trade is declining in proportion. The explanation is simple. Why bother going to the trouble to have a good idea, plan it, test it, bring it to production, market it, sell and transport it, when you can make vast sums, beyond your wildest dreams, sitting in front of a computer screen and playing the casino known as the Stock Exchange ?
[Home Rule for BC adds that speculation in money is becoming known as "stratospheric money", for a couple of reasons - it moves around the world in a flash, and it is high up out of the reach of the ordinary person.]
So who is responsible ? The governments ? Yes, because they should protect their people. But in today's system the Bank of England, The Bundesbank, Banca Italia, and the Federal Reserve, are no more under the control of their respective governments than is the weather on Jupiter. What proof ? Well, here are three examples.
First, this in one of France's largest newspapers, Le Figaro, 10 Feb 90, about the German Bundesbank:
"The mission of the German Central Bank is a classical one, but its organisation is unique. Its governing body, all-powerful, is not answerable to Parliament or to the government."
Secondly, this, published by the Federal Reserve system:
"Congress set up the Federal Reserve in 1913. But Congress does not control it, and neither does the President of the United States."
Thirdly, this, from Italian television:
"When the Bank of Italy raised the interest rate in the country by 0.5%, the President of Italy went on television to tell the people that the hike had been against his wishes and those of his government, and that the Bank was seeking its own good, not that of Italy."
[Home Rule for BC adds a fourth example. The Canadian government is allowed no voting member on the Board of the Bank of Canada.]
Clearly, the men who control the banks effectively control the world - private individuals "creating" or "uncreating"money as they see fit, following whatever suits their interests, and without a thought for society as a whole. Heads they win, and tails you lose.
Webster's New World Dictionary, 1956 - "Usury"
"The lending of money at an exessive or unlawfully high rate of interest."
2004-06-23 11:07 | User Profile
I think that Belloc has the best analysis of the problem. Usury - defined as interest on a nonproductive loan - is evil because it doesn't increase the general amount of wealth in the world.
This is the root of the evil of consumerism.
I think that it's probably more difficult to make the productive/non-productive distinction than is worth the administrative trouble, and that Islamic banking with its outright ban on all interest (even for productive loans) is a better approach.
Islamic banking allows loans that are very close to interest - if Ahmed wants to buy a car, for example, the Islamic bank can purchase the car for him, and then re-sell it at a profit that is calculated based on the present value of a stream of interest payments. I understand that that caused some litigation in Sharia legal circles, but that it was finally decided that while this form approaches the line it doesn't cross it.
I think that's reasonable. Bright line rules are the best rules, and once we've all recognized that the evil of our consumerist society is related in no small way to usurious consumer credit (I get a pre-approved credit card in the mail nearly every day), then a blanket ban on lending at interest in conjunction with a system for encouraging productive financing arrangements makes good sense.
Walter
2004-06-23 11:13 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.cnaylor.com/scripturalxrays/usury.htm]Here[/URL] is a collection of Biblical passages on usury.
[I]He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. [/I] Psalms 15:5
We have in this country a very oppressive and ungodly money system (See Federal Reserve System) which survives from the use of usury (interest), and the practice of it is one major cause of the downfall of this nation. Our federal Government is in such debt to the lenders that a large part of our taxes go to pay interest. By ignoring God's instructions about just weights, balances and usury,our government becomes more oppressive and taxes get higher, which results in the creation of tyrannical agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service to squeeze the payments out of you.
Psalms 15 1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill 5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
Proverbs 28 8 He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. 9 He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.
Jeremiah in response to his persecutors cried out:
Jeremiah 15 10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.
He knew that usury was an evil that would bring about a curse.
Exodus 22 25 If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.
Leviticus 25 36 Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. 37 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.
Strong's Concordance in the Hebrew gives several definitions on usury. None of them imply that usury is in any way a good thing. I have listed a few of the definitions.
5383 nashah (naw-shaw'); a primitive root [rather identical with OT:5382, in the sense of OT:5378]; to lend or (by reciprocity) borrow on security or interest: KJV - creditor, exact, extortioner, lend, usurer, lend on (taker on) usury.
6233 extortion: to press upon, oppress or defraud.
5391 nashak (naw-shak'); a primitive root; to strike with a sting (as a serpent); figuratively, to oppress with interest on a loan: KJV - bite, lend upon usury.
5393 usury: interest on a debt.
The modern day idea that interest is only usury when it is excessive is not a biblical concept. As we can see from the above definitions usury and extortion mean practically the same thing. By reading the Scriptures it is clear where the Bible stands on usury (interest).
Yahweh's covenant people were not to partake of the sin of usury. His people were to love one another, not oppress one another by lending upon usury.
Usury has become a common practice: savings accounts, interest bearing checking accounts, government T Bills, CD's and many other types of investments. As much as people want to justify the practice, it can't be done biblically.
John Calvin saw fit to redefine usury as excessive interest, thereby making it lawful for a Christian to collect interest from his brethren so long as it wasn't excessive. He had no biblical authority to make this definition. Just as our modern day Christian finance counselors have no authority to redefine usury and debt.
In searching for the truth you will find usury is an unbiblical practice.
The most common excuse I have heard to rationalize the practice of usury are the following two scriptures, both of which have been abused and twisted beyond recognition to justify partaking of many iniquitous programs.
Luke 16 9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
Luke 19 23 Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
For an explanation of how these two scriptures have been taken out of context see, 'Scriptures Taken Out Of Context'.
Deuteronomy 23 20 Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
I have heard the rationale, that this verse gives permission to take interest on institutions that are run by foreigners. Whether it does or not, it really wouldn't matter, since America is basically the lending nation of the world and all debts incurred are oppressive on the American people,via the multitude of taxes placed on the people of this country. Any investment or lending institution in this country that pays out interest is doing so with the money exacted from its creditors.
Nehemiah 5 7 Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them.
Psalms 15 1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. 3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. 4 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. 5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
Ezekiel 18 8 He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, 9 Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD. 12 Hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, 13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.
Ezekiel 22 12 In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.
"(Sec. 3), 1. That species of sin which is called usury, and which has its proper seat and contract of lending, consists in this: that someone, from the loan itself, which of its very nature demands that only as much be returned as was received, wishes more to be returned to him than was received, and therefore contends that some profit beyond the principal, by reason of the lending, is due to him. Therefore all profit of this sort, which surpasses the principal, is unlawful and is usurious."
From the Encyclical "Vix pervenit" to the bishops of Italy, Nov 1, 1745
Whether one is involved in receiving or giving of usury, both are iniquity according to the Bible. In receiving, it is against Biblical principle and in giving, it is supporting the iniquities of the world, such as the Federal Reserve System and the oppressors that own and operate it.
2004-06-23 15:17 | User Profile
Mr. Leghorn, allow me to thank you greatly for the above posts -- they were highly enlightening, especially the Belloc chapter and the succint Goyder definition.
2004-06-23 15:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Nathaniel]Mr. Leghorn, allow me to thank you greatly for the above posts -- they were highly enlightening, especially the Belloc chapter and the succint Goyder definition.[/QUOTE]
You're welcome, sir.
What is that Avatar thingy you having going on there?
Walter
2004-06-23 16:27 | User Profile
Very, very good, now even a peasant like me knows what "usury" really means.
Now then,,,,,, What do you call a bank that charges you between 23% to 28% in interest on their credit cards in order for you to buy junk from China?
I for one call it #$^)_&^%^ of &(^&%())^&%^, and that's why I only use credit card in order to buy stuff on line and always paid for it at the end of the month,,,,,,and I say this to you, if you don't have the money in cash to pay for it at the end of the month then don't use you credit card to buy it.
Over the past 35 years between the stamps and the paper work in order to process my credit cards I have cost the credit cards companies about $5,000, if not more.
2004-06-29 15:46 | User Profile
Here's a link to Jeremy Bentham's classic work [URL=http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthUs.html]Defense of Usury[/URL].
Walter
2004-07-14 20:08 | User Profile
Annalex:
I bump this thread to get the ball rolling from the other thread.
In my opinion (see the Islamic Banking thread), we should adopt a bright line rule against all lending at interest.
While I acknowledge the very good arguments in favour of defining usury to include only the taking of interest on non-productive loans as Belloc seems to suggest, I think that it is administratively too difficult to enforce such a rule. After all, with such a rule we'd have the courts examining whether countless transactions fall into the "productive" and "non-productive" category.
I think that the Islamic Banking idea is better - simply ban the lending of interest altogether, and then allow a good deal of flexibility in other financing arrangements.
Perhaps most importantly, the reason we must urgently resist usury now is that it lies at the heart of our consumerist system that is destroying out souls and keeping our racial parasites feeding our our substance.
Walter
2004-07-14 22:16 | User Profile
Interest in nessary. Interest covers the cost of bad loans (not everyone pays back loans), opportunity cost (I could be making money with my money if I don't loan it to you), the less valuable dollar that the loan will be paid back with (inflation), and everyone's right to make a living by profiting in his line of business.
Without ââ¬Åusuryââ¬Â no one would give you a loan for a house or to open a business.
The distinction between productive an unproductive nonsense. You could loan me interest-free the money for some bread while I take money out of my other pocket and waste it at the horse track. But, who gets bank loans for bread? What bank would loan you money for bread?
Regarding God's word against usury, read carefully. For example, Ex 22:25 ââ¬ÅIf thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.ââ¬Â The verse and other verses doesn't say usury itself is bad. It's clear that this is a moral issue about exploiting the needy. The needy should be given charity, not exploited.
There is another condition on the Bible's prohibition against usury. In Ex 22:25, you see that it is God's (poor) people (symbolically, the Hebrews in the OT are God's people) who you should not charge interest to. The prohibition does not apply to loaning money to heathens or people of other nations/races (see other verses). It is God's Will that you supprt yours and His.
Bottom line, for the Bible, usury is a moral issue. In that line of thought, usury can also be considered excessive interest (loan sharks), rather than just interest itself.
So, when your brother comes to you in need, loan him money without interest. Jesus would even have you not expect it to be repaid (at least not before he is standing on his feet). But, when some stranger comes to you wanting to buy a fancy car, make sure to charge him the current interest rate and not a tenth of a point less.
BTW, one of the reasons Jews got so deep into banking is because of prohibitions in Christian countries against charging interest. The white man left the door wide open. Also, in regards to high credit card interest rates, you can avoid paying any interest by quickly repaying the loan. And, credit cards because of abuse, theft, and being unsecured have a very high bad loan cost. So, as long as there is real competition between credit card companies, the interest rate is fair.
2004-07-15 02:05 | User Profile
Walter,
You will have a hard time convincing me, a believer in free deal-making, that usury is a violation of rights. I would agree that given the present condition in America the easy credit has eroded the economic system rather than has helped it. This is right off the bat. I will read the arguments and try to respond intelligently, maybe, tomorrow.
2004-07-15 06:18 | User Profile
Annalex & HH: my position against all lending of money at interest is much more practical than theoretical.
As you can see in my reply to HH's post below, I agree with your theoretical protestations in favour of lending money at interest, but I think that you miss the practical benefits we can gain by adopting a hard line on this issue.
[QUOTE][Happy Hacker]Interest in nessary. Interest covers the cost of bad loans (not everyone pays back loans), opportunity cost (I could be making money with my money if I don't loan it to you), the less valuable dollar that the loan will be paid back with (inflation), and everyone's right to make a living by profiting in his line of business.
Without ââ¬Åusuryââ¬Â no one would give you a loan for a house or to open a business. [/QUOTE]
See the Islamic Banking thread. Also, the Mondragon thread. There are plenty of ways to arrange profitable financing without charging interest.
These include of course equity financing. There is also leasing, and buying and selling at a profit.
In the Islamic banking experience, it appears that the most common form of consumer financing is where the bank, for example, buys the car and then re-sells to the consumer at a profit calculated based on an interest return. I admit that this comes very close to the line, but the Islamic jurists decided unanimously that it doesn't cross the line.
I agree. There's much to be said for bright line rules, and that in substance that transaction is basically the extraction of interest, but I believe in legal fig leaves. Much of justice is procedural, rather than substantive. Making a nice bright line rule banning any deal structured specifically as interest lightens the administrative burden while allowing the flexibility we need to keep the wheels of commerce turning.
[QUOTE]The distinction between productive an unproductive nonsense. You could loan me interest-free the money for some bread while I take money out of my other pocket and waste it at the horse track. But, who gets bank loans for bread? [/QUOTE]
I don't think its nonsense. In fact, it's really the most powerful argument I can think of for allowing lending at interest.
I think that part of the apparent muddle among Catholic theologians on this issue arises from their understanding that the nature of money has changed. In the Middle Ages when the Lateran Councils condemned usury without distinction as to use, money was a static thing. There was only X amount of gold and silver in the world, and very little was mined out every year, so it was a static thing and this very stasis is the thing that caused every monied transaction to be a zero-sum game.
So, if the local Hebrew lent a peasant a gold sovereign to make it through the winter and required the payment of two gold sovereigns in a year, that transaction didn't increase the amount of wealth in the world, and the peasant was reduced to debt slavery.
But all that changed with the discovery of the Americas, vast amounts of specie entering Europe's economy, and generally the understanding that the sky is the limit. This lead to the [in my view, correct] notion that the morality of any transaction relates to whether it adds to the general store of the world's wealth. Commerce is a creative thing - it's not a zero sum game, and that was one of the great discoveries of the modern age.
Money came to be tied to the productive capacity of nations, and all of that is good. If buying and selling - even through lending at interest - sends out signals to farmers to raise more wheat, and the farmers respond by raising more wheat, then the amount of wealth in the world is increased. It's not a zero-sum game. Commerce is therefore creative, and good.
This is what the "productive" versus "non-productive" distinction that Belloc rightly discerns. In fact, it really could be defined in terms of "adding to social capital" and "taking from social capital". In more basic economic terms, it's the issue of not allowing "externalities" - the view that the proper role of the state in the free market is to ensure that all economic actors pay their own costs and don't by violence, fraud or over-reacing put them off on others. These concepts are closely related, although I admit I haven't quite wrapped my mind around them yet.
Now, I agree with Belloc's analysis. Indeed, as Posner and others have pointed out, the entire law merchant is all about this "externalities" issue.
But here's the thing Belloc doesn't address: how do you administer this "productive" versus "non-productive" distinction. It seems to me to be obviously impossible. We'd potentially have the courts looking into every loan to decide whether it is productive or not. It simply couldn't be administered effectively.
This is why we need, IMHO, the bright line rule banning all lending at interest. As the Islamic banking and Mondragon experiences teach us, we can have very successful and efficient financing systems while eliminating the potential for abuse that arises from allowing lending money at interest.
And the bright line rule reduces the administrative costs to easily manageable levels.
So, just for the avoidance of doubt, I agree with your arguments about the theoretical nature of interest taken on a non-static monetary system. I'm saying that despite that, adopting the bright line rule banning interest is good for us, for a number of reasons.
[QUOTE]What bank would loan you money for bread?[/QUOTE]
It happens millions of times each day. I routinely pay for groceries with a credit card.
[QUOTE]Regarding God's word against usury, read carefully. For example, Ex 22:25 ââ¬ÅIf thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.ââ¬Â The verse and other verses doesn't say usury itself is bad. It's clear that this is a moral issue about exploiting the needy. The needy should be given charity, not exploited.
There is another condition on the Bible's prohibition against usury. In Ex 22:25, you see that it is God's (poor) people (symbolically, the Hebrews in the OT are God's people) who you should not charge interest to. The prohibition does not apply to loaning money to heathens or people of other nations/races (see other verses). It is God's Will that you supprt yours and His. [/QUOTE]
I agree with that also. Also, note that Christ Himself in his parable about the servants and the talents chided the servant who buried his talents in the ground and didn't put them out at interest. So, clearly the Biblical prohibition is not as absolute as is generally thought.
As for us Catholics, I point out that the Magisterium in the Lateran Councils condemned usury absolutely, so for us we also have to read the Bible in those terms. I would say that for us Catholics, the overall tendency of Christian Tradition and Magisterial Teaching is to at least strongly DISFAVOUR the lending of money at interest in all cases. It's really a question of where we start from. My position is that we should at the very least be SUSPICIOUS of lending money at interest, and that starting point combined with the administrative factor discussed above leads me to conclude that we should adopt a bright line rule banning all lending at interest.
[QUOTE]BTW, one of the reasons Jews got so deep into banking is because of prohibitions in Christian countries against charging interest. The white man left the door wide open. [/QUOTE]
True, but note that the Jews still run the banking system centuries after the prohibition against interest was lifted in Europe.
Which brings up another major reason for banning interest - the banking system is one of the key levers of Jewish power, and banning lending money at interest would snatch that lever from their hands. It would deal a terrible blow to ZOG - a blow from which ZOG might never recover. As I've said several times, the arguments you raise certainly have merit, but there's great tactical value to us for adopting the bright line ban on interest. Banning interest would be good for us the host society overall, and very bad for our collective Parasite.
Do you agree with that?
[QUOTE]Also, in regards to high credit card interest rates, you can avoid paying any interest by quickly repaying the loan. And, credit cards because of abuse, theft, and being unsecured have a very high bad loan cost. So, as long as there is real competition between credit card companies, the interest rate is fair.[/QUOTE]
And I would add that we also have the bankruptcy laws, so whatever additional risk the credit card companies take in their mass mailings of "pre-approved" credit cards is already priced in.
But this misses the social costs of easy consumer credit. Especially when combined with mass media advertising that plays on sexual appetites and human insecurities. These two things combined create the system we now have where people are driven to walk the treadmill of earn-consume-earn-consume things that they don't need and usually don't really even want, but are driven to it through psychological manipulation.
Easy consumer credit is part and parcel of the consumerist nightmare we have now, where women have few or no children that are raised by ZOG-trained teachers so that they can work in a cubicle to buy a McMansion and suburban vehicle to put all the children they'll never have.
Remember, we're trying to design an economy that is good for us - and this as a part of a comprehensive program that we can use to unite our people to fight our enemies. We can talk about the abstract aspects of lending money at interest, and to repeat all of those arguments have merit. But they don't help us WIN.
Adopting the hard line to ban all lending at interest does help us win, because it helps to curb consumerism and deals a blow to the Kosher bankers and advertisers who conspire to keep our people on their treadmill grinding their wheat.
For that tactical reason alone, we should adopt the Distributist ban on lending money at interest.
IMHO, of course.
Walter
2004-07-15 07:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]These include of course equity financing. There is also leasing, and buying and selling at a profit.
That's still interest. The amount you pay for the lease over the cash price is interest. The (bank's) profit, the selling price (to you) over buying price (to the bank), is interest. If you try any of this, the IRS is going to call it implied interest and treat it as interest (no fig leave of legal protection).
It also is equally immoral with what the Bible is warning against, exploiting your needy brother for your own gain.
A spade by any other name is still a spade.
Making a nice bright line rule banning any deal structured specifically as interest lightens the administrative burden while allowing the flexibility we need to keep the wheels of commerce turning.
I don't see how the administrative burden is lightened when the same interest exists. The interest is just obscured (extra complexity).
In the Middle Ages when the Lateran Councils condemned usury without distinction as to use, money was a static thing.
Yes, there essentually was no inflation before fiat money. Disinflation was more likely so there could be some profit even without interest. Inflation now guarantees that the lender will lose money if he doesn't charge interest.
This is what the "productive" versus "non-productive" distinction that Belloc rightly discerns. In fact, it really could be defined in terms of "adding to social capital" and "taking from social capital".
Okay, a farmer who grows more wheat is being more productive than the guy who wants to bet on horses. So??? The Social Capital thing, the government just prints more fiat money in the basement if the money is going to a productive use? But, the guy who wants money to bet on horses must borrow from existing money and pay interest? This doesn't have much to do with the biblical prohibition against usury for the needy (thus, the non-needy should pay interest, even for productive use).
I suppose the concept here is to keep the value of a dollar constant by tracking it to economic output. But, this doesn't have much to do with usury.
But here's the thing Belloc doesn't address: how do you administer this "productive" versus "non-productive" distinction. It seems to me to be obviously impossible. We'd potentially have the courts looking into every loan to decide whether it is productive or not. It simply couldn't be administered effectively.
That is a fatal flaw.
As the Islamic banking and Mondragon experiences teach us, we can have very successful and efficient financing systems while eliminating the potential for abuse that arises from allowing lending money at interest.
If not for oil revenues, Islamic nations wouldn't be worth spitting on. So, I don't know why you would want to use their model. I don't even know what abuse you're talking about that is facilitated by interest. Foolish spending by both the government and individuals would exist in any system.
It happens millions of times each day. I routinely pay for groceries with a credit card.
The bank isn't loaning you money for bread. They're loaning your money for whatever you desire or need. Even if productive vs. unproductive could be concretely divided, this factor is irrelevant and cannot be known by the bank (until after the fact). BTW, you can avoid interest by quickly paying off the loan. But, if you weren't charged interest, why would you bother to quickly pay off the loan?
I agree with that also. Also, note that Christ Himself in his parable about the servants and the talents chided the servant who buried his talents in the ground and didn't put them out at interest. So, clearly the Biblical prohibition is not as absolute as is generally thought.
Exactly. The anti-usury verses are about exploiting needy brothers (the Hebrews were free to charge interest to non-Hebrews or to the non-poor). They are not objections to usury itself.
Which brings up another major reason for banning interest - the banking system is one of the key levers of Jewish power, and banning lending money at interest would snatch that lever from their hands.
If only that would work. But, I don't think it would cut down on the number of Jews in the Bush administration, the Democrat party leadership, or the billions paid to Israel. There is no substitute for interest. But, there is a substitute for big banks and there is a substitute for borrowing money.
I would not pay interest for nothing but my mortage (or a construction loan). If you can't afford to buy a car with cash, look for one that you can afford to buy with cash. And, if it were possible, I'd prefer to have the mortgage through a local cooperative.
I have no choice but to pay Jewish bankers interest through government debt. The solution here is not to ban interest, but to ban government deficit spending.
Easy consumer credit is part and parcel of the consumerist nightmare we have now,
Do you want to ban people from getting credit cards? So, a poorish person who wants the benefit of a credit card other than borrowing money, such as insulating himself from someone he does business with (credit cards offer some financial protection), he shouldn't be able to do that because some other poorish sink themselves into debt trying to live a lifestyle they can't afford?
Remember, we're trying to design an economy that is good for us
Just never use credit cards to pay for things you cannot afford. Don't buy anything you cannot afford to pay cash for (unless you would be forced to rent if you could not buy, like a home).
Throw out the TV, it rots the brain and tempts you to waste money. Live humbly. The problem isn't economics, it's modern culture. White women need to want to stay home and raise families.
And, if you want to be practical, you need to consider incremental steps that can be done rather than huge changes which cannot be done. You need to consider inspiring your brothers to live wiser than tilt at government windmills. You need to take care of you and your family before trying to save the nation.
2004-07-15 22:32 | User Profile
I agree that usury,-- charging interest on unproductive loans,-- violates the right of the borrower.
However, in a dynamic economy of today even consumption loans are productive. For example, a car loan done in a vacuum is not productive because the car won't appreciate. But a car loan done in real life is a productive loan because it enables the borrower to commute to a better job. Even seemingly frivolous spending, such as borrowing to go on vacation, is productive if the outcome is better performance on the job following the vacation.
The logical conclusion from Belloc's analysis is that usury is when a non-productive member of society, -- for example, a retiree,-- borrows. A reasonable social program would then be to hand interest-free credit cards to those eligible for social security.
2004-07-16 06:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=annalex]I agree that usury,-- charging interest on unproductive loans,-- violates the right of the borrower.
However, in a dynamic economy of today even consumption loans are productive. For example, a car loan done in a vacuum is not productive because the car won't appreciate. But a car loan done in real life is a productive loan because it enables the borrower to commute to a better job. Even seemingly frivolous spending, such as borrowing to go on vacation, is productive if the outcome is better performance on the job following the vacation.
The logical conclusion from Belloc's analysis is that usury is when a non-productive member of society, -- for example, a retiree,-- borrows. A reasonable social program would then be to hand interest-free credit cards to those eligible for social security.[/QUOTE]
I also agree with Belloc's analysis. Please understand that we agree on this.
My reasons are mostly practical. I have five reasons in support of a total ban on lending money at interest:
[U]Scripture and Tradition[/U]. Scripture and the weight of Christian tradition supports a scpetical attitude toward all lending at interest. Certainly this is true for us Catholics who are heirs to the Lateran Councils. Our stance should be to disfavour all lending at interest, even though we agree that not all lending at interest is unlawful (interest on productive loans versus interest on consumption loans). It's an attitudinal thing. I suggest that we consciously adopt a high degree of suspicion for all things connected with consumerism, including here the broad and deep use of interest financing.
[U]Administrative Burdern[/U]. Making the distinction between productive and non-productive loans would be nigh unto impossible to enforce. As I pointed out above, you can use your bank card to purchase anything, including essentials that are consumed in their use. Banks routinely extract huge interest payments from the poor and working poor to finance essentials. But then to repeat, think of the difficulty in enforcing a ban on loans for bread. Thus, for administrative convenience, a total ban on all lending would make sense. This results is easy to obtain given overall sceptical attitude toward lending at interest discussed above. I also point out that the current solution to this administrative problem of drawing the "productive" "non-productive" distinction is the exact opposite of my proposal - the state simply closes its eyes to the problem. We now make no such dinstinction and equate legitimate lending at interest and usury, and thereby enforce injustice against the poor. In other words, by banning all lending at interest, we're not doing anything that the state isn't already doing.
[U]Absentee Landlordism[/U]. As mentioned previously in the context of the corporate organizational form, our general economic policy should be to favour active investing and to disfavour passive investing. For the avoidance of doubt, this does not mean anything like a ban on passive investing, but we also recognize that the institution of private property is intimately connected with human labour (we are to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, as in Genesis), and so it makes sense to favour investing that involves the attention and creative effort of the investor, as this sort of investing provides the beneficial knock-on effects of personal concern for the common welfare that extend to all society that we generally associate with the institution of private property. In contrast, passive investing tends toward absentee landlordism - an "I'm in it for $100 and to hell with the rest of it" attitude. Europe suffered long under this problem, espcially places like Ireland and Poland where the state sponsorship of passive investing and passive investors as a class was the central plank of state policy. These countries were left to suffer under the arbitrary rule of hired management of large estates (in Poland, often Jewish) who took bread from the mouths of the poor and sent their passive landlord enough rents to keep them happy and away in London or Warsaw. But our publicly traded companies have created just such another problem of passive investors and their parasitic managers. Enron is another case of stockholder absentee landlordism run amock, which is why we need to end the corporate organizational form. But lending money at interest encourages exactly this sort of "limited liability" attitude toward society at large. Islamic Banking and the Mondragon (Catholic) system avoid this by encouraging a greater degree of investor involvement. And the good news is that both of those alternatives to lending at interest work very well, and so we can still have plenty of financing to drive the real economy forward.
[U]Marketing our Program[/U]. I think that adopting the position of a total ban on lending at interest could provide significant marketing benefits for our ideas. HH objected that this proposal would never be accepted by the American public, to which I reply that under the current circumstances, of course it won't be accepted. But my understanding the Yggdrasil program is that we are placing all of our bets on the roulette number called "collapse." Under the circumstances of collapse, all things are possible. And please keep in mind that the "collapse" will be of the "virtual economy" (read Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies") of derivatives markets, fiat money, mass-mailed pre-approved credit cards, publicly traded companies, and the rest of it. If we can come in at that moment and offer our people a very clear message that the "usurers" (codespeak!) of the world are your oppressors along with a bright line, easily understood rule against all lending at interest, then I think we'll have a simple and easily marketable message that will relate directly to the pain they're feeling at the time. In short, I think that it would sell. If we, conversely, start talking about "productive loans are good" and "non-productive loans are bad", then we'll just confuse our audience and dilute the emotional charge of the message. Cynical? Damned straight. But our bet on collapse of the virtual economy is the best argument for adopting the entire Distributist program, and a radical version of it at that.
[U]Distributism is Bad for Jews, and Good for Gentiles[/U]. The Jews, like their ancestors in Poland, have created a niche environmental niche for themselves in the virtual economy. Jews are managers (Eisner is emblematic) of assets they don't own, bankers (Greenspan), advertisers (Bronfman), media purveyors of filth (Sumner Redstone), journalists (take your pick), political staffers and pundits (they are legion). You get the picture. Gentiles, on the other hand, tend strongly to be workers, mid-level managers, farmers, owners of small businesses, engineers, professinals, etc. Jews thrive on the virtual economy, gentiles suffer from it. That's why Jews like systems like Soviet Communism and American Capitalism, because they both separate assets from their owners and create a nice environmental niche for parasitic managers and middle men. In contrast, gentiles thrive on the real economy, Jews suffer from it. Distributism is all about ending (or at least limiting) the reach of the virtual economy, by attacking its foundations: fiat money, publicly traded companies, mass passive investing, a Talmudic tax system, derivatives markets, and so on. Ergo, Distributism is bad for them, and it's good for us. Now, there are varying shades of Distributism, but given the times, I say we adopt a virulent variety, and one that attacks lending at interest directly. We should do it since, if for no other reason, ZOG would hate it.
There might be other reasons that I can't conjure up right now, but that's basically it.
To repeat, we seem to agree on the morality of lending at interest in the abstract, but we disagree thus far as to the most profitable practical applicaiton of those ideas to our current circumstances.
Regards,
Walter
2004-07-16 16:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE]To repeat, we seem to agree on the morality of lending at interest in the abstract, but we disagree thus far as to the most profitable practical applicaiton of those ideas to our current circumstances.[/QUOTE] Actually, I don't know if we disagree even on that. I think, yours is one scenario among several that may develop and serve the common good.
Note that my proposal, -- furnishing all non-productive members of society with interest-free credit, -- can be implemented right away, and, since the left will like it, has a good chance of passing. It also correctly separates usury from productive loans in the context of modern market economy.
Of course, one can imagine the Judaizing effect it will have on the American seniors who all of a sudden will be propelled into the lending class. That is a joke: clearly, interest-free credit should be offered in such a way as to prohibit re-lending.
Your proposal rests on two assumptions: an economic collapse (you acknowledge that), and also a Pinochet-style government of national salvation, which would be engaged in social engineering of the right. Should that come to pass, I agree that any measure which restricts all kinds of derivative trade, which you enumerate, would be a wise measure for such government to adopt.
It is social engineering nevertheless, and so should be treated with suspicion by the conservative mind.
Nor is the Pinochet scenario the only one possibility following the collapse. There is, in my view, a strong possibility of an anarchist natural order emerging, when people make deals, seek justice, and seek protection on an individual basis. Then there will be no institution capable of any coercive measure, such as the one you propose. Rather, the necessity to trade in hard assets only will devastate the parasitic class. Usury, and other injustices will be committed from time to time, and hopefully the institutions of justice and morality will survive or emerge anew to sort out right from wrong.
2004-07-23 10:04 | User Profile
Annalex:
I think that your proposal to provide interest-free credit for essentials would be very difficult to administer, and is probably unworkable, but my mind is certainly open on the subject.
I don't know how the thing will play out. We're betting on a collapse (Yggdrasil's program, I think we're in basic agreement on that, although clearly it involves a significant element of wishful thinking), and the thing about an inherently chaotic thing like collapse is you just can't know how the chips will fall.
My proposal is to spread far and wide the cultural meme of Distributism. Distributism is a whole-cloth thing that includes both economic and social aspects. If we can get that message "out there", then when the collapse comes the meme will grow legs and lead a life of its own.
My hope is that we can agree on a concrete set of proposals and then work like mad to propagate them.
Walter