Thursday, July 14, 2011
Quote of the day
"Usury, to be clear about it, is rich people taking advantage of poor people by lending them money on terms that are sure to make them fail. All three of the great religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, had a moral prohibition against usury because they recognized that society can't function like that. People of great wealth and their institutions like banks naturally have the power to overwhelm people of lesser means. And you can't allow that in a decent society. It won't survive." --William Greider, Author, former Editor of The Washington Post, former columnist for Rolling Stone, former National Affairs Correspondent for THE NATION. Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07182008/watch2.html
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2 comments:
The popular villains here are payday loan places--but before we look at them, we need to look at the practices of mainstream banks. A bounced check can easily be 600% interest. If I realized I was overdrawn, being able to go to a merely usurious payday loan place to get enough cash to duck the bank's penalties would be a vast relief.
...and the government should really get its own borrowing under control before it gets involved in other people's.
That "logic" doesn't fit, for me. "I'm screwed up, therefore I should do nothing about an unfair situation"? That doesn't make sense. I think we all agree, Congress will always be a screwed-up, imperfect place. It's the nature of humankind, writ large.
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