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Usury
By rdf Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 01:00:14 PM EST printable version print story
The growth of the lending industries has been unprecedented in the past 30 years. More people than ever have borrowed more money and at higher rates than ever before.

In the "good old days" people had a mortgage on their home and perhaps car payments and that was it. Now people have credit card debt and various other types of loans including second mortgages and paycheck loans.


Not only has the volume of loans and the types increased, but the interest rates have as well. About 20 years ago all the usury laws were effectively repealed and now it is typical to find credit card loans with rates as high as 30%. Some paycheck loans have effective rates as high as 50% (disguised as fees).

Banks now make more money from their credit card operations (interest and fees) than they do from conventional loans.

All three major western religions have strong statements against usury. Islam bans charging interest entirely (although there are various ways to get around this).

The religious right makes a big show of using religion as the basis for various pieces of social legislation that they support. So why have I never heard any of these leaders coming out against usury?

Does the bottom line affect their morality?

Is this an area that more progressive people should be looking into. The high earnings of the banks show that their claims of needing high rates to cover losses is not valid. If you examine the financial statements of any of the big banks you will find a loss rate of 2-4%, this hardly justifies the 30% they charge.
 




Display:
From Time:
Throughout the Middle Ages, the practice of lending money at interest (usury) was held to be against natural law because money was considered naturally unproductive. The wealth of the church was almost entirely in land, as Bertrand Russell points out, and landowners are borrowers rather than lenders. But when Protestantism arose, its support--especially that of Calvinism--came chiefly from the rich middle class, who were lenders rather than borrowers. Accordingly, first Calvin, then other Protestants, and finally the Roman Catholic Church, decided that charging interest under proper restrictions was not a violation of natural law after all--although usury in the sense of exorbitant interest still is.

That was written in 1960; the sense "exorbitant" has probably changed a bit since then.

by Richard Bartholomew on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 06:05:19 AM EST


Even to raise the question is helpful - much of the Protestant American Christian right holds a laissez-faire attitude towards economic arrangements, but is it really the case that such attitudes have strong Biblical grounding ? Or, at least, is there reasonable room for disagreement ?

by Bruce Wilson on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 12:12:21 PM EST
I don't think this is a left vs right issue.
If you read Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" you will see that considering making money as a virtue goes back to Calvin and became one of the basic themes when the US was created.

At that point Christianity seems to have split into two philosophies. The work ethic one became dominant sit it fit in well with the needs of the industrial revolution.

The branch that echoed the original precepts of sacrifice, ascetism and concern for the poor has become a specialty segment. I assume that bringing this back is the aim of many of the "progressive" religious people that this site appeals to.
-- Policies not Politics
by rdf on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 06:17:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]



I've heard conservatives say that if a person doesn't agree to the terms, well, they shouldn't take out the loan, and that it is a concenting agreement between two parties.

However, they should try to live without a home or a car... the banks really have people at a disadvantage and they know it.  There is NO true informed concent for most cases.

I've seen firsthand the greed and wickedness of the banks and credit-card companies.  They prey on the poor, and have started on the middle class in more recent times (last 20 years?).

by ArchaeoBob on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 10:22:52 PM EST



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