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Haha...uh no. That is propaganda of the money changers and shylocks. It is a twisting of logic that fools the droolers (and has for millenia).
Money tokens, particularly when they are fiat, are essentially just fancy counterfeit IOUs. Okay for the sake of argument, let's pretend that the money tokens actually were redeemable for something of tangible value. (the fiat is just backed by perpetual slavery of those who use it, and it is perpetual slavery because of usury, but we will sidestep that entirely to keep things simple)
So we are pretending that your IOU is "worth" something, say an egg. You wind up hoarding a bunch of eggs, so many so that they are doing you no good and are just laying around. (You can only eat so many). Your neighbor doesn't have enough to eat so he asks you for a dozen eggs.
Now instead of giving him the eggs (because you like hoarding them or genuinely believe that you will need them in the future) decide to tell your neighbor that you need him to give him a dozen back at a later time. So your obviously are not generous with your abundance, but you certainly are not being unreasonable either.
Now consider the usurer. This individual not only has too many eggs for his own use, demands that he gets whatever he loans to his neighbor, but demands that the neighbor bring back two dozen eggs for his "investment".
This usurer has "invested" his excess that he has no use for and demanded a return of more excess. He has "lost" nothing, he has "sacrificed" nothing, he has "provided" nothing, in the transaction. He simply has used his excess to create more excess. He has most likely caused more deprivation of his neighbor. As his neighbor didn't have enough eggs in the first place, so paying back double what he had borrowed will most likely leave him in a worse situation than when he started.
So say the neighbor realizes the inherent loss and perpetual downward spiral into destitution that he will always face in interactions with the usurer. Now he must seek another victim of usury so that he can get his supply of eggs from you. So parasite upon parasite, the transactions continue until those at the very end of the chain of usury have no way of ever paying back the pyramid of parasites.
But this pyramid is actually quite small and will always get smaller and smaller until everyone is a slave to the top usurer. Hence the consolidation of wealth we see in the world today. The usurers "create" value where there is none. "Loaning" excess is not an investment and takes absolutely no effort or productivity on the usurer's part.
If the usurer needed what he "loaned" out, he would not be loaning it out. He only loans it out with "interest", because he does not need it, and wishes to profit from further plunging his neighbor into debt who is already in need of what he already has in excess.
Usury in the end is identical to gluttony.
If you produce an actual product or service and make exchanges with your fellow man fine. But when your excess becomes a tool to consolidate the wealth of all those with less than you...well...that is up to your morality.
There is a reason that the Central Banking Families and friends have the human race in perpetual slavery, usury is but one of their scams.
When the slaves imitate their captors it is akin to Stockholm Syndrome. But you do your fellow man no good, you become as evil as the tyrants...
Are we talking about the illegal loaning of money at "high" interest rates?
I personally am talking about any "interest" when dealing with the exchange of any form of money tokens from an ethical and economic reality standpoint. Not any "legal" definition.
So long as both parties agree ( loaner and borrower), what's the problem?
Nothing, theoretically. And I am not saying that people should be forced to condemn and abandon the evil practice of gathering excess from their excess.
What I wanted to point out is the inevitable horrible consequences of embracing the concept that usury is "good". People should be free to do as they please if no one is an aggressor.
But reality is reality.
Those with excess can simply create more excess for themselves while making everyone else have less. This is a never ending downward spiral for everyone in the end. (Except for those who have the most to start with or those who create and/or control the creation of money tokens in the first place)
Inevitably, those who started with the most, those who create and control the money tokens, they eventually wind up with everything. It can be no other way.
Usury is just a way to consolidate money toakens. With usury, those with "money" simply extract "money" from others for no other reason than that they already have an excess of "money" to start with. It has nothing to do with "investment", "effort", or "production". It is simply a scheme whereby one uses his "money" to take other people's "money". Again, look at the consolidation of wealth we have in the omnipotent financier class in this world. This was largely only possible by people practicing and condoning usury or "interest".
Of particular import is to realize what is happening on the grand scale. Sure, renting out your excess, an extra house, may seem trivial and a neat way to generate income. And the average person charging interest on a loan to their neighbor seems like a small and not particularly evil use of leverage upon someone with less than you. It is only "right" for us to take advantage of the lack of others, that is "capitalism" after all.
When viewed from the top however the picture is much clearer. You have a handful of people who have vast holdings of money tokens, more than the rest of the entire population. They have the ability to never produce, invest, or provide anything at all and at the same time collect usury, er "interest", from everyone else in the entire economy.
Furthermore, this select few can create more money tokens as well. And these same people loan it to themselves at 0% interest. So they do not even charge themselves interest, but they do charge everyone else. The people must pay interest to those who create the medium of exchange. The effect, overall, regardless of free will, is that the financier class is able to extract the wealth from all of the people and consolidate all of the wealth for themselves.
These people invest nothing, produce nothing, provide nothing. They simply have an excess of wealth. And their excess allows them to create more excess. They are parasites and we are the host. Us accepting that usury is a "good" thing is us "accepting" being eternal slaves of those with those excess for no other reason than they have excess wealth.
In effect, even at its most "noble" form, interest charges us perpetual fees for the right to use a medium of exchange. So simply because we use a token as a simple medium of exchange, we are being continuously charged to simply engage in the economy.
While I know that I will be vilified by capitalists, and most likely everyone, usury is what it is. A tool of consolidation of wealth in the hands of those who already have the most wealth to start with for no reason other than they are wealthy.
Imagine just the simplest example. The heir. He is born into a world where he will never do anything for anyone ever, but because he has vast holdings of money tokens, his wealth will steadily increase over his lifetime while he does nothing, produces nothing, provides nothing, but simply consumes the wealth and effort of others. This "heir" is the financier class that exists only because of usury and interest. And they are visible and apparent. These Families and friends have virtually all of the worlds wealth in their select few hands. And their consolidation of wealth can only continue as everyone else in the population becomes more destitute.
So while usury is nothing at the lowest levels, us, it is everything at the highest levels. That we accept this as a "good" thing (out of our own greed and belief in our superiority to our neighbor simply because we have some excess of our own) is what makes us all agents of our own deprivation by the few.
We have accepted the notion that "value" is equal to "leverage" in this society. We have accepted that voluntary mutual exchanges should be based upon "leverage" rather than simply exchanges of value for value. We believe that it is noble to leverage as much as possible in an exchange rather than just trading equal values. That is perhaps another philosophical debate, but it is at the heart of how the money changers and shylocks have been able to take advantage of our basest instincts to enslave us all to them.
Usury is good. Proper use of renting money helps individuals own homes and start businesses.
As long as both parties are willing there should be no limitation on the usury rate.
The fact some people have a lot of money to loan is a good thing.
You do not see anything wrong, not legally but morally, with excess creating more excess only by making those who lack, lack more? I am not posing anything as absolute, as "right" and "wrong" eventually becomes a personal version of morality.
Simply the presence of wealth creating more wealth by making poor, poorer is okay?
Or do you look at this from merely a property issue and that by having excess property you have a special natural privilege to garner more and more property without end?
What of the financier class, who have more wealth than everyone. Who effectively never produce, invest, or provide nothing to anyone. All the while consuming as much as they wish while still amassing more and more wealth? This is the result of usury which makes everyone poorer and poorer while the very few continually get wealthier and wealthier. Can you see how this might be wrong? (Not illegal, but morally wrong...)
You do not see anything wrong, not legally but morally, with excess creating more excess only by making those who lack, lack more? I am not posing anything as absolute, as "right" and "wrong" eventually becomes a personal version of morality.
Simply the presence of wealth creating more wealth by making poor, poorer is okay?
Or do you look at this from merely a property issue and that by having excess property you have a special natural privilege to garner more and more property without end?
What of the financier class, who have more wealth than everyone. Who effectively never produce, invest, or provide nothing to anyone. All the while consuming as much as they wish while still amassing more and more wealth? This is the result of usury which makes everyone poorer and poorer while the very few continually get wealthier and wealthier. Can you see how this might be wrong? (Not illegal, but morally wrong...)
You see the pie as a fixed size when the truth is the pie grows. I am wealthier and most of the middle class worldwide is wealthier due to usury. I don't care about equality of wealth, nor do I care (with few exceptions) how that wealth is generated.
At today's interest rates it is almost foolish to forego the use of usury. Borrow and invest the cash.
You see the pie as a fixed size when the truth is the pie grows. I am wealthier and most of the middle class worldwide is wealthier due to usury. I don't care about equality of wealth, nor do I care (with few exceptions) how that wealth is generated.
At today's interest rates it is almost foolish to forego the use of usury. Borrow and invest the cash.
I never insinuated it was a fixed "pie". A certain few can create money which devalues everyone else's money instantly. And the people don't realize it because of the "velocity of money". Those who create this new money can lend it out at the value it had before more was created to those who only receive its debased value, and then they charge interest upon the full value that they never loaned out in the first place. But that is just the evil theft of fiat compounded on top of usury.
The "expanding pie" is an indirect theft of everyone using "money" in circulation. This theft is only magnified further through usury for the creators non-investment of anything.
I am trying to understand the defense of usury by ordinary people and am not trying to be simply argumentative...so please indulge me for a moment.
Let us consider a man who builds a home, and let us say for simplicity that he invests a year of his labor to do so. Now let us say that this home will last one hundred years. He already has a home of his own so this home was built as an investment to generate income.
Now consider that he rents this home out to others for half of their income. This renter will receive fifty years of labor for one year of his labor. (No this has nothing to do with communism, just a hypothetical...)
For what reason does his year of labor have a value equal to fifty years of labor of his renters? I understand that the renters may be happy paying the rent because they do not have an excess of time to build their own and that they have rented voluntarily just to have a home. I am not implying any aggression or illegality in any way.
From a philosophical or ethical view, what is it that makes the labor of one worth fifty times the labor of another?
Now understand that this is an actual investment by this man, and I am in no way suggesting that he should not benefit from his labor. But when looking at exchanges between humans, trading good, services, labor, etc. at what point is extracting as much as is possible from one another through leverage versus simply making equal exchanges with one another cross the line into immorality? When does one become more predator than trader?
Next consider this analogy to the real world with the fictional person above...
There is a group of people who essentially own all of the homes. And the homes they have built will last forever.
These people and their friends collect perpetual rent for homes that they never built that everyone must live in. They can do this forever never working, producing, investing, anything forever. They simply collect more and more rent into perpetuity. What gives this small group a divine right to be the landlords of humanity forever? What gives this small group a right to live off the labor of others forever while never laboring for anything themselves? This is interest, usury, or whatever you wish to call it.
And where does the insanity end. Should this non investment by the Financier Class entitle these families to the wealth and labor of all humanity for eternity?
Finally, when did exchanges between humans value for value transform into extracting as much as possible above and beyond any investment of one party simply by applying leverage upon the other's lack regardless of what they offer in return? There seems to be no connection whatsoever in human exchanges that is based upon trading value for value. It seems that the only thing that is considered is in taking everything and anything that is possible by applying as much leverage upon the other as is humanly possible. I find it rather, disgusting and immoral, and of course that is just my opinion...just trying to peer into other's hearts is all.
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