[GJM] [socialcredit] Definition of usury.
robert searle
dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Jun 25 13:17:32 MDT 2008
Might be of interest from the Social Credit Elistas group.
R.Searle
--- On Wed, 25/6/08, Per Almgren <almgren_per at telia.com> wrote:
> From: Per Almgren <almgren_per at telia.com>
> Subject: Re: [socialcredit] Definition of usury.
> To: socialcredit at elistas.com
> Date: Wednesday, 25 June, 2008, 7:53 PM
> Joe Thomson skrev:
> > (Martin wrote:-) Something that concerns me about
> Douglas is the fact that
> > he appears to wish
> > to superimpose his Social Credit remedies on a banking
> system not
> > fundamentally changed from the present. As I see it,
> the toleration of
> > interest (reward without risk), is in fact a means by
> which those who issue
> > credit become more and more wealthy at the expenses of
> the public, the value
> > of whose money is steadily eroded by inflation.
> >
> > (Joe comments:-) I think what you're saying about
> Douglas above may well be
> > true, Martin.
> >
> > But is there really "reward without risk"
> for those who "issue credit" if
> > the value of the public's money is steadily eroded
> by inflation?
> >
> > For is not the "public's money" the same
> money by which you say the issuers
> > of credit will become "more and more
> wealthy"?
> >
> > And if it is, and it's being steadily eroded by
> inflation over time in
> > terms of what it'll buy, there's certainly a
> "risk" present there, too, I
> > would think.
> >
> The interest paid is actually causing the inflation since
> there is only
> two types of costs includid in the price of goods and
> services.
> One is the payment for labor, the other is payment to those
> who owns
> money, either in the form of interest or in the form of
> profit.
>
> If not all of the received income is used directly for
> purchasing goods
> or services, or given to other people who uses it directly
> for
> purchasing goods or seriveces or given ... and so on, then
> the rest of
> the money is either witheld (hoarded) or lended or
> "invested" in some
> kind of "papers" that give a return, i.e. shares
> or bonds.
>
> Since the group who paid the costs for interest and profit
> doesn't get
> the total sum back in form of wages and salaries they will
> have less
> money than before unless they in one way or another borrows
> more money
> from somebody outside this group. As times pass by they
> will get more
> and more indebted and/or experience a rising rate of
> unemployment. (In
> this description a person could belong to both groups if
> he or she
> both get interst and a salry or wage.)
>
> The same problem occurs if people starts to save part of
> their wages and
> salaries. What is then actually happening is that their
> personal
> situation gradually move their "point of gravity"
> from the working group
> to the owning group. For most of them, it won't improve
> their economical
> situation. The cause of this is that the cost part of
> interest of goods
> and services will rise as fast as this move goes on.
>
> In order to be a winner in this type of interest and profit
> system, your
> part of the total invested and lended sum must be grater
> than yor part
> of the total income from wages and salaries. Many years
> ago, I checked
> this from a representative sample (about 13 000 housholds)
> of the
> Swedish population from official statistics. The result was
> that only
> two percent of the total population actually was to be
> found among the
> winners. That means that a lot of people supports the
> present system
> although they actually are among the losers, but they
> themselves
> apparently think that they belong to the winners group. It
> also shows
> that the skills and interst in mathematics among the
> population is quite
> low and such calculations are of course not teached in the
> schools.
>
> If people and businesses get more and more indebted they
> simply have to
> rise their prices for work or products they sell, or to
> increase the
> volumes which again can't be done without increasing
> their loanes and so
> on until the environment as we see it collapses and with it
> the present
> type of economy.
>
> Per Almgren
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Martin Hattersley"
> <jmartinh at shaw.ca>
> > To: <socialcredit at elistas.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 4:15 PM
> > Subject: [socialcredit] Definition of usury.
> >
> >
> >
> >> I have been interested by the discussion on what
> is usury that has been
> >> taking place.
> >>
> >> R.H.Tawney, in his classic "Relligion and the
> Rise of Capitalism", after
> >> discussing and dismissing various types of dealing
> which involve risk, and
> >> so are not usurious, gives a definition as
> follows:
> >>
> >> "What remained to the end unlawful was that
> which appears in modern
> >> economics textbooks as 'pure interest' -
> interest as a fixed payment
> >> stipulated in advance for a loan of money or wares
> without risk to the
> >> lender.... The essence or usury was that it was
> certain, and that whether
> >> the borrower gained or lost, the usurer took his
> poind of flesh."
> >> (Transaction Publishers edition, 1998, p.42)
> >>
> >> Summarizing the present relationship between the
> Capitalist and the
> >> Christian approaches to life, where the former has
> effectively excluded
> >>
> > the
> >
> >> area of commerce from the control of morality, he
> concludes: (ibid, p.286)
> >>
> >> "the quality in modern society which is most
> sharply opposed to the
> >>
> > teaching
> >
> >> ascribed to the founder of the Christian faith ...
> consists in the
> >> assumption, accepted by most reformers with hardly
> less naivete than by
> >>
> > the
> >
> >> defenders of the established order, that the
> attainment of material riches
> >> is the supreme object of human endeavour and the
> final criterion of human
> >> success...What is certain is that it is the
> negation of any system of
> >> thought or morals which can, except by a metaphor,
> be described as
> >> Christian. Compromise is as impossible between the
> church of Christ and
> >>
> > the
> >
> >> idolatry of Wealth, which is the practical
> religion of Capitalist
> >>
> > societies,
> >
> >> as it was between the Church and the State
> idolatry of the Roman Empire."
> >>
> >> In his "Wealth, Virtual Wealth and
> Debt", Nobelist Frederick Soddy sets
> >>
> > out
> >
> >> the psychology of this approach in the following
> words: (page 122)
> >>
> >> "Psychologically, the economic aim of the
> individual is, always has been,
> >> and probably always will be, to secure a permanent
> revenue independent of
> >> further effort, proof against the passage of time
> and the chance of
> >> circumstance, to support himself in old age and
> his family after him in
> >> perpetuity. He endeavours to do so by accumulating
> so much property in the
> >> heyday of his youth that he and his heirs may live
> on the interest on it
> >>
> > in
> >
> >> perpetuity afterwards. Economic and social history
> is the conflict of this
> >> human aspiration with the laws of physics, which
> make such a perpetuum
> >> mobile impossible, and reduces the problem merely
> to the method by which
> >>
> > one
> >
> >> individual may get another individual or the
> community into his debt and
> >> prevent repayment, so that the individual or
> community must share the
> >> produce of their efforts with their
> creditor."
> >>
> >>
> >> Something that concerns me about Douglas is the
> fact that he appears to
> >>
> > wish
> >
> >> to superimpose his Social Credit remedies on a
> banking system not
> >> fundamentally changed from the present. As I see
> it, the toleration of
> >> interest (reward without risk), is in fact a means
> by which those who
> >>
> > issue
> >
> >> credit become more and more wealthy at the
> expenses of the public, the
> >>
> > value
> >
> >> of whose money is steadily eroded by inflation.
> It's certainly happening
> >>
> > at
> >
> >> the present time, when the system at least in the
> United States appears to
> >> have been pushed to the limits, and all signs are
> pointing at the moment
> >>
> > to
> >
> >> a very unpleasant period of
> "Stagflation". Maybe this is why Muslims, who
> >>
> > do
> >
> >> not allow this type of banking, are so unpopular
> in the Capitalist world.
> >>
> >> Comments, anyone?
> >>
> >> Martin Hattersley, 5929-189 St.,
> >> EDMONTON AB CANADA T6M 2J1
> >> Phone (780) 483-5442
> >> e-mail <jmartinh at shaw.ca>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Some introductory materials to the discussion
> topic of this list are at
> >> http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
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> >>
> >
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Some introductory materials to the discussion topic of
> this list are at
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> >
> >
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Some introductory materials to the discussion topic of this
> list are at
> http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
> You're subscribed to this list with the email
> dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk
> For more information, visit
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