then to a foreigner you may charge
interest it's interesting st. jerome and
if you look at the early church father
st. jerome has a very famous statement
about ubi
just bel i boobie ATM juice user i if
it's just to wage war on them it's just
to charge users
that's how he understood that that the
that the stranger was actually somebody
who was an enemy and then this was the
Jubilee right you know what they would
say today our economist oh that creates
moral hazard right seriously that's
exactly how that how they would look at
that and then this is Ezekiel also right
so and and this is a just man who does
what's lawful and right he doesn't eat
on the mountains where the idolaters
used to eat and or lifted his eyes to
idols nor defiled his neighbor's wife
nor approached a woman in her impurity
if he has not oppressed anyone but he
has restored the debtor to his pledge
he's robbed no one by violence taken no
Ussery if he had not extracted using nor
taken any increase but has withdrawn his
hand from iniquity and executed true
justice between a man and a man if he
has walked in my statutes and kept my
justice judgments faithfully he is just
now in the Jewish tradition and the Jews
in European tradition were forced into
usury it's very interesting if you
studied they used that a lot of the
European sovereigns would have the Jews
as tax collectors and this is like
having african-american police in inner
cities do you know it's it's it's it's
kind of it I mean that's an opposite
example of that it's trying to deflect
but it's what the tax collector when he
was Jewish if he would come they would
see the Jew and not the sovereign so
they would see the Jew as an oppressor
and that was literally designed I mean
these people were were Machiavellian in
their in their in their outlook so but
this is from the Talmud every man's
Talmud by dr. Cohen one method of
earning a living which was condemned in
scathing terms by the rabbi's was usury
a man who practice it was precluded from
giving evidence in a court of law come
and see the blindness of the user errs
if a man call his fellow a villain the
latter proceeds against him even to the
extent of depriving of his live with it
but user errs take witnesses scribe pen
and ink and write and seal the document
to the
I mean woody guthrie put that in a more
popular phrase when he said some men
will rob you with a six-gun and some
with a fountain pen and so that's what
he's alluding to but he said no matter
how far you roam you'll never see an
outlaw take a family from its home not
like the bankers whoever has money and
lends it without interest of him as
written he that putteth not out his
money to user he shall never be moved
hence you can learn that if a man lends
on interest his possessions will be
moved users are comparable to shedders
of blood Cato the Elder was asked about
user he he said user II asked me about
murder he equated it with murder and
there's reasons for that would that the
monitor people don't understand
unfortunately because we don't fully
grasp it one of the most important
things and this is why it's so good to
see this issue being addressed justo
Gonzales and I would recommend reading
this book faith and wealth a history of
early Christian ideas on the origin
significance and use of money in
Gonzales his book what he shows very
clearly is one of the most central and
important issues that Christians were
grappling with was the ethical use of
wealth they were obsessed with it in
their writings but what he says on the
outlines of the actual relationship
between faith and wealth there's and
there is also remarkable unanimity it's
one of the few things they really agreed
on to the point that certain themes
appear again and again usery by witches
usually meant any loan on interest is
universally condemned in the early
church the one possible exception is
clement of alexandria who may have held
that the prescription of loans on
interest applies only to loans to other
believers but even this possibility is
based only on a debatable interpretation
of a single text so user ii was seen as
condemned and and this is obviously the
chasing them out love your enemies do
good to them and lend to them without
expecting to get anything right even
your enemies so this is really
abrogating that idea of lending to the
the enemy which is why he put it in
there and it's interesting that modern
Christians have justified usury with the
Luke story about the man who comes with
the the talons and he gives his each one
he gives him ten and five and one and
then two of them work it in the third
one he just hides it and he says oh I
knew you're an austere and cruel man and
you take what's not yours and you reap
what you don't sell so I just hit it and
here it is here and he said you you're
your condemnation of me is my judgment
against you you should have known that I
would have wanted more and you should
have put it in a bank and gotten
interest so he used the example of a
wicked tyrant that everybody hates and
says well there's Jesus he's saying user
he's okay
they have very weird interpretation but
hey that's Scripture yeah the nature of
the sin called user has his proper place
in origin in a loan contract this
financial contract between consenting
parties demands by its very nature that
one returned to another only as much as
he has received the sin rests on the
fact that something the creditor desires
more than he's given therefore he
contends some gain is allowed to him
beyond that which he loaned but any gain
which exceeds the amount he gave his
illicit and user EAA's this is an
encyclical a papal encyclical which is
basically Church doctrine the Pope
writes it and then sends it out to all
the churches this is not ex cathedra in
other words it's not considered
infallible because the Pope's rarely use
ex cathedra as a doctrine and but this
was sent in 1745 it was all over by Pope
Benedict the 14th and then it was again
applied to the in cyclical to the whole
the Roman Catholic Church in 1836 during
the reign of Pope Gregory and dr. Noonan
one of the great Catholic scholars says
that it's impossible say that there was
not universal agreement on the
prohibition of usury charging for the
loan of money is unjust as such for you
are selling something that doesn't exist
this is the important distinction that
the the medieval 's understood that
money is a means of exchange
it is not meant in and of itself to be a
source of income you can invest money by
buying goods and products and selling
them as a businessman but when you loan
money and make money off the money you
have perverted the purpose of money
which is a means of exchange and you
have made it an end as a good is an end
this is how they understood it the word
in Greek for usury was tacos which means
to give birth and this is why he has
them on a barren sandy completely on
fertile because what they've done is
they've made something that should be
unfertile in its essence but it causes
things to grow if it's used properly and
so this is this is a Thomas saying some
things like food are concerned by use so
that the use can't be separated from the
thing when we let someone use such
things and we transfer the ownership of
the thing itself so if you sell a
sandwich you've transferred the
ownership of sandwich and so the use of
the sandwich was which its consumption
is you can't charge them for that and
that's why bankers literally get their
cake and eat it too literally
it's amazing so so now when we let
somebody use such things than we
transfer knowledge if we tried to sell
wine and it's used separately we would
be selling the same thing twice over or
selling something non-existent that
would clearly be unjust by the same
token then it is unjust to lend wine and
then as for the twofold recompense the
restoration of some equivalent and
charge for its use this is what user he
is a use charge in such cases there are
however things which are not in this
abuse
st. Thomas always preempts what you're
gonna object to right he even really
he's quite stunning in that he
constantly does that he just he thinks
okay what are they gonna say to this one
and then boom he answers you so he said
there are however things which are not
consumed by you a house is used by
living in it not by pulling it down so
here we can separate the thing from its
use transferring the ownership for
example while reserving the use for
or vice-versa allowing someone the use
and retaining its ownership this is why
one can listen for a houses use and
later ask for its return as happens in
letting and renting so now Aristotle
tells us money was invented for the
purpose of exchange and that its prime
and proper use is in its consumption and
disbursement by being spent in
transactions it follows that it is in
principle wrong to charge for the loan
of money as is done in usury now in the
Islamic view allodynia Karuna rely upon
Allah , a poem on Lydia Taha Babu who
ship an omen and mess those who devour
usery
will rise only like the one who rises to
be knocked down by a demon as if
possessed by madness my teacher said
Abdullah remember who's one of the
foremost authorities on Islamic finance
said that this is the boom-bust cycle of
a new serious society they rise only to
be knocked down and this will happen
again and again throughout history the
Quran says those who consume interest
cannot stand except this one stands who
is being beaten by Satan as a demon oh
you have believed do not consume user he
doubled and multiplied but fear that you
may be in order to be successful now in
traditional views of all forms of wealth
acquisition the most unnatural and
odious is that by means of usury
Aristotle in the politics John Addison I
love this one a moneylender he serves
you in the present tense he lends you in
the conditional mood keeps you in the
subjunctive and ruins you in the future
I mean really great stuff nothing like
the English for stringing words together
usery dolls and damps all industries
improvements and new inventions where
and money would be stirring if it were
not for this slug provision and that's
why why how are they trying to stimulate
the economy now they just keep lowering
the interest rate right just keep
lowering it down but there's deeper
problems and this is I'm gonna get to
this anyway john maynard keynes says
this very interesting that he used he
was brought up to believe that the
attitude of the church was to the rate
of interest was inherently absurd and
that the subtle discussions aimed at
distinguishing between the return of
money loans from the return of active
investments were merely Jesuitical
attempts to find a practical escape from
a foolish theory but I now read these
discussions as an honest intellectual
effort to keep separate what classical
Theory has inextricably confused
together the rate of interest and the
marginal efficiency of capital and he
distinguished he invented the marginal
efficiency of capital so that's the nice
thing about inventing your own terms is
that you define them as well
so but he basically the marginal
efficiency of counts of capital is what
it's worth which is not necessary the
interest rate so most economists would
see the same thing he saw it as
different but his point was is that they
recognize there is a difference between
the capital itself and and and the
interest itself and they distinguish
between those two and and but it's
prohibition is is for a very different
reason
I already mentioned that from now back
to to Dante now we're in the fraud now
why why is greed violent fraud is not
one of the seven deadly sins and the
seven deadly sins Aquinas says deadly
sins are capital sins which means they
breed other sins in the same way that
you have moral virtues are virtues that
are the source or the matrix of other
virtues so courage when you think of
generosity generosity is a virtue but
generosity is subsumed under the virtue
of courage because you can't be generous
without courage your your your your your
literally going against the fear
of losing your wealth by giving it to
somebody else and so it's a very
sophisticated system but fraud st.
Thomas identifies these are called the
daughters of the seven deadly sins and
he has each of the sins have daughters
like one of the sins the daughters of
lust is that you begin to hate God you
begin to lose any sense of spirituality
because you're so subsumed by the
sensual but in the daughters of greed he
has treachery he has fraud
so fraud is a daughter of greed it's a
daughter of avarice yeah and it's
important to note also that the deadly
sins are not acts they are states of
being so greed is not an act it's a
symptom when you see somebody acting
greedily that what he's doing is a
symptom but the actual disease is a
state of being and so he's got the first
ones are the the panders and the
seducers the fraudulent men there's
there's a book now that was on the front
table of borders and Barnes & Noble
called the players Bible and it was a
book on how to seduce women like it
teaches you how to seduce women and and
what's interesting about this is that
apparently there's a whole underground
group of these guys that communicate on
internet and exchange how they do these
things I read an article about this and
it was quite shocking to see this but
this is this is a type of fraud like to
know the right things to say to a woman
in order to seduce her right and that's
what they do so they're fraudulent and
he he has this horrible geureon which is
a from from Greek mythology which is a
monster with a beautiful face and it's
got a poisonous tail and that's how he
personifies fraud and so and and and
this is also he's got the flatterers who
are literally up to it in cracked like
they're full of it literally I mean in
in Hell so there he's got the the
glutton the
witness our being rained down by feces
rain it's like so the flatterers are
those those people and this also is you
he would probably today put the ad
executives down here if he was a lot the
scientists are those who sell from Simon
Magus and in the New Testament who tries
to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
puts obviously the church was having a
difficult time with that and then divin
errs astrologers and magicians he would
probably put people like and he put the
people of his time like the people that
read Dante knew all the names because
they were familiar with all the people
they were like celebrities of the time
so he would put probably like these
people dive in or dinners he would put
these guys on CNN who do the the
prognostication for where the stock
market's going you know telling you what
to buy and things like that and then
he's got the the Bears who are what the
Simon is are to the church the barriers
are to government they're the people
that accept bribes and then he's got the
hypocrites the thieves
fraudulent counselors and it's
interesting the man that advised Caesar
to cross the Rubicon is here so it's the
people that give fraudulent advice like
the people that told the to go into Iraq
for instance under false pretenses
because many of them knew and this is
all come out so we know that this is the
the the type of and then solar's of
scandal and schism this is where
unfortunately for Muslims he has the
Prophet Mohammed with Adi now I want to
and I you know this is difficult for me
but I would like to defend a little bit
Dante Dante Dante put him it in among
the schismatic s-- there is another
group in in the heretics which is where
the false prophets were he is not I'm
sorry not in in the he's in the the
false prophets are in the they're in the
eighth circle I think they're in the
first bowl gia he does not put them with
the false prophets he puts him
with the schismatic so now the
schismatic SAR the Eastern Churches and
this is in essence acknowledging that
these are believers but they saw schism
was actually because it created violence
and rupture in society it's also not a
disease of fraud and this is pointed out
by the commentators in Dante that he
puts him here because the the the fraud
is in their own misperception of the
world this is this is how he does it and
I also want to say that these people
that he puts here are not the people and
that's why people say oh he put his
enemies in hell and he was just cruel
and just know these are personifications
he is personifying the idea of schism
and that was something very close to a
deeply divided world between christians
and muslims who were fighting then as
unfortunately we are now so but then he
puts the falsifiers
alright now what's interesting to me
he's got the counterfeiters and the
alchemist and and and and the people
that the coin i want to look at this was
110 years ago when the earl lectures
were founded look at what the dollar the
purchasing power of the dollar was
alright because what you could buy you
see is it has diminished to the point so
for instance my grandfather who sold
bubblegum as a ten year old boy in in
San Francisco down on Market Street in
1906 he used to sell it I think for a
penny little packages of bubble gum so
all you have to do is look at how much
that package cost today and in those
days it was organic right so so you'd
even have to like double the price to
get the organic bubble gum but just look
at the purchasing power of the dollar
that has been declining and then our
debt 56 trillion and this is it's
actually higher than this now but this
is the current liabilities and unfounded
promises okay we only have about 15
trillion dollar
in circulation and this is what we owe
in liabilities Social Security met a cow
all these things okay I mean this is a
real crises so our current national
debts at about 12 trillion right and our
budget was close to two trillion so now
most of this again we're going a large
portion is going to defense and another
portion is going to interest on the
national debt now this is old wine in a
new bottle so because in the old days
you had gangsters and the thing about
gangsters is that they would just go in
and usually have like they would cover
and they'd go in and rob the bank now
they get on the boards it's much more
clever series and this is not
exaggeration there's a book called the
best way to rob a bank is to own one
and this is what these people have been
doing and it's really quite stunning now
I just look at this statement Wall
Street with its vast banks in New York
City and associated banks and all other
large cities suggested that there was a
prospect of most disastrous panic that
the world and and that had known unless
Congress gave them emergency currency
neither could these great swivel-chair
operators of Wall Street exploit the
commerce that would follow between the
war nations and our country has a great
profiteering game unless Uncle Sam came
to their aid and financially that is
would give them more currency okay
instead of aiding the people as the
Congress as the government should have
done Congress immediately passed and
emergency currency Act to Furness the
banks that the speculators controlled
all the money they should need till they
could operate the Federal Reserve Act
the speculators received from Uncle Sam
nearly four hundred million dollars okay
that would be about four hundred billion
today under the provisions of the
emergency currency act and when the
Federal Reserve Act really got to
operating they had nearly four hundred
million at one time under that act and
they could get as much more as they
wanted
that's congressman Charles Lindbergh
senior who was this the father of
Charles Lindbergh who flew across the
Atlantic he was a congressman that was
opposed to the Federal Reserve but my
point is is that it's the same game too
big to fail this is how it's all fear
and this is one of the things that the
the the panders and the seducers they
use fear and desire to trick people and
and and to get what they want now it is
an old maxim and a very sound one that
that he who dances should always pay the
fiddler now sir in the present case of
any gentleman whose money is a burden to
them choose to lead off a dance I am
decidedly opposed to the people's money
being used to pay the fiddler no one can
doubt that the examination proposed by
this resolution must cost the state some
ten or twelve thousand dollars a lot of
money in 1837 and all this to settle a
question in which the people have no
interest in about which they care
nothing these capitalists generally act
harmoniously and in concert to fleece
the people and now that they have got
into a quarrel with themselves we are
called upon to appropriate the people's
money to settle the quarrel because they
wanted money over a stock collapse that
happened and this is an old game now I
want to talk about America's great fairy
tale you see every culture has to have
some really profound fairy tale and and
ours is the Wizard of Oz now The Wizard
of Oz about the time the Earl lectures
were being initiated there was a
character named William Jennings Bryan
in fact a hundred and ten years ago he
would have just found out that he lost
the 1900 election for president he ran
on the anti-imperialism platform he was
an he was a pacifist they called him a
coward they considered him a coward he
was a pacifist
he was also pro farming and and our
farmers people have no idea how much our
farmers have suffered in this country
really the suicide rate is the highest
amongst farmers I mean these are people
tied to the land and when the lands
taken away from them and and they're
forced into this agribusiness Gresham's
dynamic which is that the cheaters drive
out the honest people now I just want to
look at this fairy tale because bomb was
was basically given us an allegory at
this time when he was writing this the
great debate in the United States was
over finance reform and
this Dorothea represents um the American
the good American from Kansas good
Midwest state she's on a farm and BOM
describes her her you know her aunt and
her uncle never smile it's a barren farm
because it's drought and then basically
she meets she goes to this land she
lands on the Wicked Witch of the East
Wall Street and she and and the
munchkins the little factory workers are
freed and they're really happy and then
the Good Witch of the North which is
where all the support for the populace
were come down and she gives her the
silver slippers which turned into ruby
slippers in the film but in the book
they're silver slippers and then she's
told to go to Oz because she wants to
get back to Kansas follow the yellow
brick road they were on the gold
standard in 1873 this country removed
the silver standard and they demonetised
silver which created an incredible
burden on farmers because gold was rich
people's money silver was poor people's
money and it was made illegal for people
to use and that's Bryan's famous the
cross of gold don't crucify us on a
cross of gold so the yellow brick road
leads that emerald forests the green
backs because the currency was tied to
the gold and and in the book they all
wear emerald glasses that have a string
connected to a gold belt and the
Scarecrow represents the kind of simple
farmers that were intelligent but not
educated and they needed a brain with
the thoughts I III could be thinking I'd
be another Lincoln if I only had a brain
and then the Tin Man is the industrial
factory workers who are dehumanized
by industry and and this is why the Tin
Man in the book says that he used to be
a real human being that was cutting the
wood but he would cut himself and and
the the tin makers would put him back
together until he became completely tin
but now he's lost his heart because this
is the alienation the dehumanization
that happens in factory workers and then
the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings
Bryant who was called a coward and and
needed the courage and the
power to do this they wanted to restore
bimetallism this was Hamilton's original
vision of this country to have a
bi-metal economy under a gold standard
the amount of credit the and by the way
at the end when she kills the Wicked
Witch of the the West which is where all
the farmers were being held it's the
yellow Wilkie's who are the the the
Chinese workers on the the railroad and
the winget monkeys who were the Native
Americans he was actually quite racist
towards Native Americans but they talked
about how we used to live on the land
and in the forest until these evil
people came and took us over and but how
does she kill the Wicked Witch liquidity
because because that's what they needed
they needed a cash infusion and and she
kind of dissolves into thin air right
what does she say
now I want you to really think about
this I'm coming to a close I know that
because I have to come to an end here
under a gold standard the amount of
credit that an economy can support is
determined by the economy's tangible
assets since every credit instrument is
ultimately a claim on some tangible
asset but government bonds are not
backed by tangible wealth only by the
government's promise to pay out of
future tax revenues and cannot easily be
absorbed by financial markets a large
volume of new government bonds can be
sold to the public only at progressively
higher interest rates thus government
deficient spending deficits spending
under a gold standard is severely
limited the abandonment of the gold
standard made it possible for the
welfare status to use the banking system
as a means to unlimited credit they have
created paper reserves in the form of
government bonds which through a complex
series of steps the banks accept in
place of tangible assets and treat as if
they were an actual deposit this is just
on a ledger in the in the Federal
Reserve as the equivalent of what was
formerly gold the holder of a government
bond or of a bank deposit created by
paper tzer's believes that he has a
valid claim on a real asset the law of
supply and demand is not to be conned as
the supply of money of claims increases
relative to the supply of tangible
assets in the economy prices must
eventually rise thus the earnings saved
by the productive members of society
lose value in terms of goods so if
you're saving money you're losing money
in this system when the economy's books
are finally balanced one finds that this
loss in value represents the goods
purchased by the government for welfare
or other purposes
really it's all defense spending but the
money proceeds and interests of the
government bonds financed by bank credit
expansion in the absence of the gold
standard there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through
inflation there's no safe store of value
if there were the government would have
to make it illegal as it was done in the
case of gold back in the 30s if everyone
decided for example to convert all his
bank deposits to silver or copper right
they'd lose their purchasing power so
the financial policy of the welfare
state requires that there be no way for
the owners of wealth to protect
themselves this is the shabby secret of
the welfare state as tirades against
gold deficit spending is a simply a
scheme for the confiscation of wealth
gold standards stand in the way of the
insidious process it stands as a
protector of property
if one grasp this one has no difficulty
in understanding the status antagonism
towards the gold standard that was Alan
Greenspan okay
that's true statement alan greenspan a
man who is furnished with arguments from
the mint will convince his antagonists
much sooner than any than one who draws
them from reason and philosophy gold is
a wonderful clearer of understanding it
dissipates every doubt and scruple in an
instant accommodates itself to the
meanest of capacities silences the loud
and clamors and brings over the most
obstinate and inflexible philip of
macedon was a man of most invincible
reason this way he refuted by it all the
wisdom of athens confounded their
Statesman's struck their orders dumb and
at length argued them out of all their
liberties that was addison again when
the freedom they wish for most was the
freedom from responsibility then Athens
ceased to be free and never was free
again that's one of our greatest
scholars on on the Greco tradition I'd
like to end with a poem by Robert Frost
because in the end for me the real two
sources of truth in this world are
revelation and poets and in the Islamic
tradition you can't separate the two
it's a prerequisite to comment on the
poor on that you have to master the
pre-islamic poets literally that is
agreed upon in Islamic tradition what
what poetry enables us the poets
penetrate and the poets are inspired and
and Dante was an inspired poet we can
look at the kind of there are many
things that we would object to but
ultimately Dante's vision is a vision of
every man and every woman's journey back
to God and in the end when Dante has the
beatific vision and and he sees it he's
he says and already my desire and my
will were made one turning by a wheel
yet at one speed the desire and the will
become one there's no more tension
between one's impulses and one's moral
rectitude and then he says
turned by the love that moved the
planets and the stars that love of God
Robert Frost wrote two poems about
economics and one of them he never
published it's called not it's called on
the inflation of the currency 1919 which
was when Wilson inflated the incurrence
he printed up a lot of money in order to
in order to pay for the war debts and he
said the pain of seeing 10 cents turned
to five we clutch with both hands
fiercely at the part we think we feel it
in the head the heart is someone cutting
us in two alive is somewhat at us
cutting us in half we cast a dangerous
look from where we lie up to the
enthroned it kings of earth and sky
they know what's best for them - well -
laughs that's about the bankers they've
convinced people that we need them
there are necessity they confiscate
wealth this misappropriation of wealth
is beyond belief in human history the
amount of money that's been taken out of
your homes people in this room the 401ks
that were destroyed and then he has
another poem and this is a warning to
America he says these words were cut in
stone for permanent these words so these
words I assume were so deeply met meant
they cut themselves in stone for
permanent like trouble in the brow above
the eyes and here's what's chiseled in
stone take care to sell your horse
before he dies the art of life is
passing losses on the city saying it was
Tessa Fong which may a little while by
war and trade have kept had have kept
from being caught with the decayed
infirm worn out and broken on its hands
but judging by what little of it stands
not even the ingenuities of debt could
save it from its law
is being met sand is thrusting in the
square of door across the tessellation
on the floor and only rests a serpent on
its chin content with contemplating
taking in until it can muster breath
inside a Hall inside a hall to rear
against the inscription on the wall
we're this country's money is being
destroyed really it's being destroyed
before our eyes and it's being destroyed
because of debt and debt is something
that is incredibly overwhelming for
people poor people have suffered the
most in this crises and until we take
the responsibility of understanding at a
deeper level the economics of the system
how it works we can't change anything it
was attempted William Jennings Bryan
attempted to do it a hundred and ten
years ago and there's a lot of people
now talking about this now whether we're
able to do it or not I don't know but
this system which is a global system now
and Ussery if you if you study how usery
works more interest on usury is going
out of the third-world countries than
aid going in this is just it's it's a
disgusting game and and it really should
end but whether we can end it or not is
is to be seen thank you very much
[Applause]
okay will now take questions from the
audience just just raise your hand if
you like ask the question thank you you
have continued a PSR tradition of
expanding our minds a lot of us own
homes I own a home isn't it fair for
there to be some interest charged on a
loan you know that's an argument that
was Calvin's argument Calvin
John Calvin was the French he was
originally Roman Catholic and then he
gets in trouble in the Inquisition moves
to Switzerland
the bankers actually erected a statue
for him because he's the first one that
legalizes usury in in in Christianity
but he did it by the idea of interest
and interest was originally a between
time if you delayed payment even by
church doctrine you could be charged in
the same way that they charge on credit
cards today if you're delayed that was a
reasoning what interest meant but what
Calvin did is he distinguished between
interest and usury and saw usury as
unjust or exorbitant at that time
anything higher than 12% would have been
considered usury Justinian the roman
emperor considered it 6% anything over
6% most people don't realize that a lot
of people in these pay day things are
paying sometimes 50% interest what the
bankers did is that they studied all of
the states and their interest laws and
they found out that Delaware and North
Dakota did not have interest law caps
and so they they put their operation
city cores in North Dakota not in New
York because there's usury laws in New
York huh
South Dakota sorry yeah South Dakota now
what's interesting is that
in smiley versus Citicorp smiley it's a
case that went to the Supreme Court
because they kept changing the rates on
on his his thing and so he actually
tried to see if he could put an end to
it and and the Supreme Court ruled
against smiley for Citicorp which ended
caps on these they used to charge five
dollars for a late fee now their shows
like $35 $40 the poorer you are the more
they charge even John Calvin who
accepted interest did not accept it for
poor people and what you have to
understand is the people that suffer
most are the poor people because they
get the worst rates and this is usury
you see most of you are probably in the
700s in your FICO score which is what
Fair Isaac that's the company that
determines it great Fair Isaac now one
of the things they don't tell you is
that anytime you miss a payment the
reason it suddenly drops is because they
want to raise your interest rates the
system's rigged against you but one of
the things that they have special files
for celebrities judges wealthy people
they don't do it to them because they
don't want these people to get angry and
make advocates the number one complaints
given to the Fair Business Bureau in the
United States is again is against credit
cards number one complaint people are
suffering out there most people don't
understand compound interest they don't
understand how if you pay the minimum
payment if we paid them the national
debt if we started paying it one dollar
a day it would take two hundred eighty
eight thousand years to finally pay it
off and in reality you could never pay
it off because of the nature of interest
so the point here is is you know
obviously companies have to make money
and things like that
renting money is in in the Islamic
tradition it's absolutely forbidden but
usury has always been even in the Muslim
world there's never been a society that
has been completely freed of interest
but there should be at least just rates
just rates and the people that suffer
most again are the poor people and and
we we should
advocates for these people because these
payday loans and people think these are
pawn brokers and schemers most of these
inner-city payday loans are owned by
Wells Fargo Bank of America seriously
it's just like it's it's like Disney you
know Disney has touchstone for their
racy films because they didn't want to
taint the name of Disney this is a very
sophisticated system and what you have
to realize is it's not that you know
they're all evil and is us and them this
is people that are afflicted with states
of being that are very unhealthy they're
not well and and part of what what what
you know just laws are to regulate
people from their own bad nature