Like most people, I grew up within the modern money system. The lessons were easy to learn. Save money, open a bank account and receive INTEREST! And when I grew up and really wanted to have fun, I could invest in the STOCK MARKET and reap dividends - interest upon the money invested. As an engineer, I was taught to calculate the time value of money, and the income tax ramifications of depreciation. What a surprise I had when I discovered that everything I was taught was WRONG.
_Psal 15:5_ He that putteth not out his money to
usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
_Ezek 18:13_ Hath given forth upon
usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.
_Exod 22:25_ If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him
usury.
_Levi 25:36_ Take thou no
usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.
To examine one's own beliefs and understandings is one thing, to find fault in them is another - and most embarrassing. Why is that? I have had to realign my own thoughts when confronting modern money and banking processes.
I was taught and sincerely believed that we should save money in banks or invest our capital in stocks and, in return, gain interest, or dividends. The explanation was so simple: Hoarded money is not available to be exchanged, thus is not good for the economy. But recently, I pondered the fact that while it is good not to leave surplus money "buried in the backyard," it is even worse to expect usury for loaning it to a bank or investing it in a business. I shocked myself when I realized that my lifelong programming distracted me from the truth: any fee or charge denominated in money for the investing of money is usury - an abomination and, in the long run, impossible to pay!
Yes, indeed, we all have been programmed to accept usury as good. No matter how much or how little return on investment is involved, to charge a fee, in money, for the use of money, is usury - plain and simple.
But we're told that modern man needs interest and dividends. It's great to have an annuity. We fuss and calculate future worth for present value invested, and utilize compound interest formulas. We estimate what our retirement accounts will profit us.
Why bother saving if one couldn't get more money in return? If there is no reward, why would one loan or invest with his neighbor?
I asked my imaginary friend from 4,212 B.C. that very question: What did the rich herdsman do with surplus capital and/or investment?
My friend leaned on his shepherd's crook and thought a moment. He said, "If the herdsman was rich in herd beasts but shy on grazing land, he might invest them, via a loan, to his neighbor with more land and no herd beasts. In return for that investment, the owner and the borrower agreed to divide the gain, the newborn animals. And after a period of time, the original capital, the breeding stock, would be returned, well fed and well bred."
In the ancient way of doing business, the common sense folks knew that life did grow and reproduce. The natural increase of plants, animals, and living things was well understood. Seeds produced plants that generated more seeds, thus multiplying amounts, and higher value. Animals bred more animals that increased the quantity and value.
But precious metal coins, or even paper currency notes are dead dead dead. They can't naturally increase. You can't plant gold coins and get a bumper harvest of more gold coins.
The scam of the usurers was to persuade their victims that the rate of return of nature, natural increase, could be applied to money, a dead dead dead thing.
So why is usury on dead money so immoral, or bad?
Usury requires the borrower to pay back more money than he received. If you have a fixed amount of precious coin money in circulation, then usury drains money out of circulation. Worse, it transfers money power to the lender, for nothing more than extending credit.
Some economists would argue that the "velocity of money" gets around the finite money problem. But the velocity of money will only work in a labor intensive marketplace.
A simple example is a world with three workers with each worker owning one money unit. Each day, they hire each other to do work. At the end of one year, 3 man years of work is performed with only 3 units in circulation. But this fails when investment or mass production is involved.
Why is this?
Any businessman puts money into the marketplace to hire labor and pay for raw materials. And he offers his product or service to this same marketplace to recoup not only his labor and material cost, but his profit, as well. If you stretch the test case to the limit, where everybody is a "producer" demanding profit from a finite money pool, the obvious conclusion is there isn't enough money to repay labor, material AND profit. Which results in a shakeout of marginally profitable businesses - just because money was scarce.
Usury, like business investment, demands the money pool grow to cover the drain of "interest." If there is no way for the borrowers to "create" new money to pay the usury fee, the system will produce a portion of losers, who will be foreclosed or repossessed by the creditor.
Examine the friendly poker game where each player gets 100 chips from the host. But the host requests that you pay him 101 chips at the end of the night, in gratitude for using his chips. And if you fail, you pledge something of value for default.
As the night wears on, some win, some lose. But as the end of the night arrives, there will certainly be folks who not only cannot pay the gratuity, the interest, the usury, but can't even repay the original capital. The defaulter then forfeits his property to pay back the capital and interest. And worse, he blames himself for his failures instead of the real culprit - usury!
Usury is despicable for it not only is impossible to pay, in a finite money system, but the usurer wants the victim to be grateful that he is allowed to grow back his skin - after being skinned alive! In a universal sense, usury eventually robs everyone else in the system for the benefit of the usurer. Usury boosts prices, raises costs, and robs the consumer and producer for the benefit of the parasite.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we shouldn't invest our surplus. Investment can and should return something of value, such as the gain or profit from the enterprise. But to require more money in return for the loan of money is not virtuous, moral, or even sane.
In our modern times, the total outstanding debt, public or private, due from usury is impossible to repay. If tomorrow, all debts were due, there is not enough real money in the whole world to pay the outstanding debt. Which would mean that all the property pledged for the debt would fall into the possession of the banksters who loaned the credit into existence (and charged interest!).
Like fish who can't perceive their water universe until they leave it, our understanding of the economic harm is impaired until we leave usury. Usury damages the economy because it steals value from the seller and buyer, for the benefit of the usurer.
The usurer preys upon those in need, the merchants and producers, starved of capital. They who prey upon merchants and productive people are called pirates. In other words, usury and piracy are closely related if not synonymous.
There is no need to revolt with violence - non-cooperation is the key. If Americans revolted against the banking and investing institutions, by canceling all interest bearing accounts, that would drive them to find other victims. If the people revolted against Social Security, and revoked their signatures on the application for the number, the voluntary servitude system would collapse. If we left behind the "Babylonian" money lenders, the result would be lower prices with higher profit margins. And more money, debt free, means more exchange of goods and services. And that spells prosperity. Shucks, even the Bible says so!
The future is dim, if we remain in the banker's grip. There is no future but decline as we are bled dry by the usurers.
What can we do about parasites?
If usury is akin to sucking leeches, there is but few alternatives.
A) We can blindly ignore it, and fall to our early deaths,
B) we can recognize it, but ineffectively deal with it, or
C) we can cure the parasite infestation by complete excission. Either they leave us alone or we leave them alone - permanently.