all the major religions are against it, so i don't think it's a purely christian thing. there's a big bit about it in that book i'm reading wot i will lend you once i'm done.
Usury
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
AFAIK no - Polonius in Shakspeare's "Hamlet" and a self-righteous so and so he was too.
The thing is, the sharia equivalent (eg you pay 11 equal annual installments of 1/10th the value of the house you want to buy) also enables rich people to become richer pretty effectively.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
One of the set texts for my A level year, that speech also featured once or twice over the years in assemblies, near the end of term. Along with the full "no man is an island", one about long chopsticks in Heaven and Hell, and one about Christmas Humphries using brass doorknobs.One learns something every day.
Did I mention that the same memory which makes languages easy to pick up is a bit of a curse?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
No, you're mixing him up with my nan.
Thing is it's not bloody rocket science is it. It's obviously wrong to profit by lending money to people skint enough to be desperate then get them to pay you back more so you get even richer.
Pay day loans, cheque cashing, loans4u etc. fuck em all.
Unrelated but radio aire were giving out 500 quid to a listeners too poor to 'get through' to the Jan paycheck. This poor bloke started crying with gratitude cos he couldn't afford food for his family. Awful.
Pay day loans, cheque cashing, loans4u etc. fuck em all.
Unrelated but radio aire were giving out 500 quid to a listeners too poor to 'get through' to the Jan paycheck. This poor bloke started crying with gratitude cos he couldn't afford food for his family. Awful.
AFAIK there's a bit in the OT (and therefore probably also in the Torah) where moneylending is explicitly allowed, but every so many years, all debts are written off. And even the year before the next jubilee you weren't allowed to refuse to lend somebody money on the grounds that they'd only have to pay back one year's worth of debt.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Did your nan have much of a beard?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
Buddhism's not.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I reckon the ancient church had it about right with the law of no more than 1% interest per month.
The concept of people just lending money as a gesture of goodwill, without any expectation of getting it back again, never mind with interest, is a nice concept, but in reality it's just going to mean that those without much money can never borrow money from those who have it, and sometimes they need to borrow that money even at a reasonable interest rate, eg to buy a house.
Lenders realistically need to make some level of interest in order to at least cover the inevitable losses from non payment of some proportion of the loans made, otherwise they'd soon see their money disappearing if they were lending it out at no interest rate.
I'd definitely support a limit on interest rates, and charges made for borrowing money though - nuts to charge £30 for going into an overdraft by a few quid, and similar stuff that can actually make the pay day lenders rates seem almost sensible in comparison for a very short term loan.
The concept of people just lending money as a gesture of goodwill, without any expectation of getting it back again, never mind with interest, is a nice concept, but in reality it's just going to mean that those without much money can never borrow money from those who have it, and sometimes they need to borrow that money even at a reasonable interest rate, eg to buy a house.
Lenders realistically need to make some level of interest in order to at least cover the inevitable losses from non payment of some proportion of the loans made, otherwise they'd soon see their money disappearing if they were lending it out at no interest rate.
I'd definitely support a limit on interest rates, and charges made for borrowing money though - nuts to charge £30 for going into an overdraft by a few quid, and similar stuff that can actually make the pay day lenders rates seem almost sensible in comparison for a very short term loan.
In Deuteronomy, Jews are permitted to take usury from "strangers" but not from "brothers." Christians interpret this as a universal ban, on the grounds that all men are brothers.
Note the assumption that taking usury is inherently hostile. This was a universal assumption until the C18th. Thus Cicero, asked what he thought of usury, replied "what do you think of murder?"
Good point. There's a Scottish saying that borrowing from friends is the most expensive way of all. Less a question of morality, it's more because it changes the situation from one of two equals to that of one disadvantaged and one (potentially) resenting the other's perceived lack of gratitude or compliance. OTOH if you borrow from a stranger, there's no previous relationship to be damaged.
The assumption is more that you only take usury from somoeone who you're aiming to destroy.
Thus some interpeters of Deuteronomy claimed it was permissable to take usury only from wartime enemies.
Shakespeare catches this understanding of the term very well:
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends, for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty.
Really?
Yep.
In fact the term "usury" is often used as a synonym for "avarice." Usury was conceived as the objective expression of the subjective vice of avarice.
Note that there was never any question about usury being beneficial or moral, any more than there was controversy about whether greed was good. In the era of Gordon Gecko, we see things differently.
8den
No I'm pretty sure that was 8ball...
Awww we missed you too Phil
xslavearcx
time for a nu-metal revival?
Thats funny you should say that, cause my policy to debt is i always pay back personal debts because i'd never be a dick to my friends/family, but when it comes to debts from banks and what not - i never pay em back.. Managed to bump wonga for a few hundred a couple of years back..
Congrats on screwing Wonga. FWIW I think with friends or relatives it's probably better to give outright on the understanding that if they're later able to repay it and they either want to, or feel that they need to, they can.
Part of the "common bond" condition for credit unions is that you'd be more likely to feel some qualms if you deliberately didn't repay what you'd borrowed.
xslavearcx
time for a nu-metal revival?
Yeah that sounds like a good policy of giving money to friends. If i am ever in the financial position to be able to tap people money, that will be my policy! (im generally the tap-ee lol)
This thread makes me so happy.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Really? That's a big statement.
But then who cares? Many major religious texts proscribe homosexual acts. 'All the major religions are against it' is a piss-weak argument even if it's true. It's not even an argument.
FWIW it's not all the major religions Hinduism (or at least, some of its older texts) has no problem whatsoever with homosexuality.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yeah, I know not all. And I know dwyer is arguing for a specific thing - the universal condemnation of usury in all major religions. I'd like to know where the ancient practice of conquered nations paying tribute to the central empire power fits in with this. Ethically pretty damn similar to usury, I would have thought - charging interest on money is not the only way to exploit the labours of others unfairly from your position of leverage within society.
I'd put it on the same level as the way in which the mother/fatherland of various empires took the raw materials and other resources (including manpower), gave very little by way of payment, and then used those resources to make manufactured goods which they could sell back to the colonies with significant profit, since the colonies weren't given a chance to develop their own manufacturing etc facilities.
BTW sorry about the long sentence, I've been reading too much German again.