Usury

Usury (from the Medieval Latin usuria, "interest" or "excessive interest", from Latin usura "interest") was defined originally as charging a fee for the use of money. This usually meant interest on loans, although charging a fee for changing money (as at a bureau de change) is included in the original meaning. After moderate-interest loans were made more easily available usury became an accepted part of the business world in the early modern age. Today, the word has come to refer to the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest.

Quotes

When once the usurer has obtained complete control of monetary creation, the interest mechanism has achieved its purpose, and could the be given up. When the usurer lent the original gold coinage, he created a debt claim and appropriated the interest. When, however, he began to create and lend money, he appropriated both interest and capital. Thus the usurer's (i.e. banker's) wealth and power finally derive from this credit creation, wherein, as Major Douglas puts it, "power comes not from charging interest but in creating new claims and appropriating them."

- Human Ecology p127

Human Ecology

The following exert about Usury is on page 84.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definition;

The fact or practice of lending money at interest; esp. in later use, the practise of charging, taking, or contracting to receive excessive or illegal rates of interest for money on loan.

The word today is generally taken to mean lending at excessive or unconscionable interest though what constitutes an excessive interest rate is uncertain. for our purpose here we need not consider this definition, and usury here simple means the practise or fact of lending money at interest; and by interest is meant money aid for the use of money lent. It will be apparent, however by reference to the lending actions describedin the introduction, that usury is a very variable nature, depending e.g. on what variety of money is lent, on whether the money is lent by a private individual or by a financial institution etc.

In a serious consideration or the subject therefore it is necessary to particularise carefully. Jeffery Mark saw this clearly and in his Analysis of Usury (Dent. 1935) (p26) he distinguished a major and a minor variety, thus;

there are two forms of usury. the major form is that represented by bank loans and the discounting of bills, and the minor form by the creation of interest bearing savings, investments, or inheritances, which as government or municipal stock, industrial shares, bonds, debentures, mortgages, or capital claims on land, plant and property, make up the debt structure in every country. The common and essential feature in all these processes, here comprehended as the major and minor principles of usary, is the payment of money interest on money lent.

... we must always differentiate between lending by private persons and lending by banks or other credit making institutions. In the later case they create the means of payment out of nothing and then proceed to appropriate both capital and interest.

Bear Stearns takeover

• Bernanke Bails Out Bear
• Bear Stearns Gets Sweeter
• You're Being Taken to the Cleaners

Economics commentators

Bird and Fortune Credit crunch skit

David Walker

• The U.S. Economy is Unsustainable

George Soros

• On Financial market / Fed bailout

Jim Cramer

• Ron Paul on Mad Money /

Bear Stearns' Fund Problem Won't Spill Over / Bear Stearns recommendation / Bear Stearns error

Jim Rogers

• FEDERAL RESERVE and Bernan / Jim Rogers on Ron Paul (4:51secs)

Joseph Stiglitz

• World Bank Speech / The subprime problem just beginning / NZs problem / Iraq War 1 / Iraq War 2 / Iraq War 3
• Joseph E. Stiglitz on The Alex Jones Show

Marc Faber

• On housing, FED, stock market

Paul Volcker

• Charlie Rose - Paul Volcker

Peter Schiff

• Ron Paul Advisor Peter Schiff On Glenn Beck / Crash Proof / The Schiff Has Hit The Fan

Ron Paul

• The Housing Bill
• Interviewed By Aaron Russo About The Fed
• Discusses Financial Turmoil and the Fed

Leo Panitch

• Real News interview: Debt-fueled rat race drives economic crisis

Robert Kiyosaki (Get rich style publisher)

• US dollar crash / US dollar crash2

Don McAlvany

• U.S.Real Estate:How it affects your financial future

Jean-Claude Trichet

• EU inflation "high, for a protracted period,"

Other comments

• Economic implications of the real estate bubble

Companies involved in Credit crunch

• Absolute Capital (Australian)
• Basis Capital (Australian)
• Northern Rock (British)
• Bear Stearns (American)
• Macquarie Bank (Australian)
• New Century Financial (American)
• Carlyle Group *Wikipedia
• UBS (Swiss)
• Deutsche Bank AG (German)
• ANZ bank (Australia/New Zealand)
• ING investments (Australia/New Zealand)
• Tower (Australia/New Zealand)

FBI probe widens to 17 firms Among companies implicated in FBI mortgage probes are Beazer Homes and Doral Financial. The largest US mortgage lender, Countrywide, is also under FBI investigation, authorities have said.

See also

• Youtube-The inevitable collapse of the dollar
• Currency
• W:Usury
• http://www.theproblemwithinterest.com/index.html
• The Money Masters
• Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive
• Motley Fool
• Federal Reserve - Robbing Americans Since 1913
• Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve