What is the opposite of Usury?

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   Aya Katzposted 15 years ago

   I just saw the word "usury" used in a serious, derogative way on the internet. How many people feel usury is bad? What is usury, besides a high interest rate? And is there another term for when you lend money to people and they won't pay you enough interest -- like when your bank won't pay you enough interest on savings to keep up with inflation? What is the opposite of usury?

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      dutchman1951posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Main Entry: usu·ry
      Pronunciation: \ˈyü-zhə-rē, ˈyüzh-rē\
      Function: noun
      Inflected Form(s): plural usu·ries
      Etymology: Middle English usurie, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin usuria, alteration of Latin usura, from usus, past participle of uti to use
      Date: 14th century
      1 archaic : interest
      2 : the lending of money with an interest charge for its use; especially : the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates
      3 : an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest; specifically : interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money
      
      
      the opposite, would be fairness, legal reaasonable charges, I would think
      
      Jon

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   thranaxposted 15 years ago

   It basically means stealing. I don't think there is a clear opposite. There isn't one on Thesaurus.com nor dictionary.com
   
   ~thranax~

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      Aya Katzposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Interest is stealing?

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         A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I would say a very, very high rate of interest is unfair, don't know about stealing. People enter into stupid deals sometimes, you know like with mortgage companies?

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            ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            Just because you consider an interest rate too high doesn't matter unless you're the borrower.  If someone is willing to pay 20% interest who are you to say that's too high.  If the lendee thinks the interest rate is too high, they'll pass on the loan.  If they think the interest rate is just right or too low, they'll take it.
            
            Likewise the lender has to find the right amount of interest to charge.  Too low and they don't get a good return, too much and the lendee will walk away.  What's wrong with that?

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               A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

               Thats kinda what I said

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                  ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                  It sounds like you have an absolute maximum number in mind here.  120% interest compounded daily is too much, or some such.  That is an assumption on my part, and if that assumption is wrong, I apologize.  I just happen to think that the terms of borrowing should be between the lender and lendee, nobody else.
                  
                  
                  
                  You always have a choice.  Sometimes it's a choice among bad choices, but nobody said life is particularly fair.  Besides can you read another person's mind and know for a fact what their sense of morality is?

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                     tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                     I don't need to read a person's mind to know that too high interests is a kind of fraud, more so ,if that person doesn't have another choice.
                     And if you say that everyone has a choice, you haven't lived enough.

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                        ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                        I don't think you've lived enough.  You can make whatever choice you want, but you can't choose the consequences of your actions.  So you better make your actions good ones.  If you think an interest rate is too high, walk away.  You're not me and can't make that decision for me, nor can you do it for anyone else.

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                        A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                        I have lived a long time and been through more than the average and not so average person, I always, repeat always had a choice! Sometimes that choice was going hungry but I did not let someone screw me so I could get some bacon!

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                           tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                           Sometimes life is not that easy !
                           An example : what if your child is sick and going to die if he doesn't get surgery done? What if you need money for that surgery ? Will you let him die, or would you ask for the money even at high interests ?

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                              ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                              How much do you value the life of your child?  If you did do it, would you then bitch at the cost or get to work so your kid could survive?

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                                 tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                   How can getting to work can enable my child to survive ? Maybe I don't earn enough.Get real! Lots of people in this world don't get choices. Lucky ! it seems you do!

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                                    ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                    Wow, and you say I haven't lived enough.  You're only entitled to what you work for.  I know that's hard for you to understand as you've grown up under the nanny state, but it really is true.
                                    
                                    You make an awful lot of assumptions about people, don't you.  You don't know the first thing about me, where I come from or what I've seen.  If you did, you might not consider me so lucky.  Unlike you, I don't project my problems on the world.  I'm too busy trying to solve them.  That's how adults act.

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                                       tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                       If you say people have always choices, you haven't lived enough. that's a fact .I'm not making any assumptions here. And I'm not projecting my problems to the world as I don't have any. But I know lots of people have. Maybe you're too selfish to see.

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                                          ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                          And that's a circular arguement, also known as a logical fallacy.  Sorry try again.
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          Oh you must be one of those people who think that just because they say a thing, that makes it true.  No need to provide examples or anything.  Heck why not do it, our President does it all the time.
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          Well it must be nice to be so balanced.  Of course it might be that you have problems, but don't recognize them as such. 
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          Wow, look at that, another assumption.  Are you sure you don't assume things?  It sure seems to me like you do.  Understand something, I don't know you and could care less about what you think about me.  You can go play with the other arrested adolescents around there, there are plenty of them.  Adults understand how the world is and deal with it, they don't throw tantrums.

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                                             tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                             You're so funny !   and so bitter! Life didn't turn out so well for you , didn't it?

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                                                ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                                Nope, just weary of all the stupidity and ignorance out there.

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                                          Mishaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                          I am in a complete agreement with LDT on this, And if 50 years total in two biggest empires on Earth count, I lived long enough. For sure longer than you. 

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                                             tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                                             I bet ! I'm such a child !

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                              Mishaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                              You kill your pride, reach out and ask people for money.

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                              A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                              I have the money! Maybe in another time of my life I would have taken the high interest rate, the one time in my life when my son was sick and very ill I had very good insurance so I can't really say what I would do. Maybe I will write a hub about that time, I did something with my sons doctor that he wont soon forget, and the statute of limitations is up....finally

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         tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         If it's too high it is.

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            A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            Not if its agreed upon!

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               tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                 sometimes you have no option and that'sstealing. Maybe it's not ilegal but it's a sort of moral fraud.

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                  A Texanposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                  How could you not have an option?

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                     tantrumposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                     If you're desperately in need of money, you don't have any option. You have to ask for a loan. If the interest is high you have to accept it anyway. Do you remember  gangsters  ? they used to lend money on high interests.

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                        ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                        If you're stupid enough to borrow money from the Mob, then you deserve everything you got.  Let's be honest, the vast majority of those loans are to cover gambling debts.  Another life lesson, don't gamble with money you can't afford to lose.  Here's another, look a twofer.  Don't think you can gamble and strike rich, you can't.  Stupid people get themselves into situations like that, then they moan and cry for someone to save them from their own stupidity.

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               dutchman1951posted 15 years agoin reply to this

               what about these new credit card rates, raising the rate without asking, or giving you a chance to say yes or no?
               
               thats illegal I think

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   Aya Katzposted 15 years ago

   Ledefensetech, I agree that we always have a choice. But for the sake of argument, what about someone who has no better choice than to leave money in the bank. What should we call an inadequate interest rate, in that case?

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      ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      You can always shop around from bank to bank to find the highest interest rate offered, but higher rates usually mean more risk.  Of course I'd be leery of putting my money in a fractional reserve bank, but if you absolutely have to do it, I'd look for a credit union or regional bank.  Less chance of spectacular meltdowns there.  In that case you'd have to weigh the benefits of a higher interest rate vs the risk you're assuming.  In the case of a fractional reserve bank what you're really doing is letting the bank borrow your money.  If more people thought of it that way, well the banking industry would look much different than it does today.

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         Aya Katzposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Well, that's my point. I know I have a choice. I know I'm responsible for what I do, whether I am the borrower or the lender. What I am trying to understand, here, is what the majority of people think. How come they have a bad word for exorbitant interest, "usury", but no derogatory term for inadequate interest?
         
         What are they thinking? What motivates them? Don't they know that the way things are set up, they are lenders, too?

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            ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            No people don't understand that.  Banks deliberately mask that from people because then their depositing habits would change. It's one thing to think you're depositing your money into a bank and you can get it back at any time.  It's another thing entirely to know you're lending your money to a bank and if they have too many bad loans, you'll not get your money back.
            
            By letting people think that they deposit their money and they can get it whenever they want, the masquerade as a fully reserve bank when in reality they are not.  In other industries this would be labeled fraud.  That's why bank runs periodically happen.  People will get scared that the bank is overextended with too many bad loans and people won't get their money back, so they rush to the bank to get their money out, which precipitates the very thing they were afraid of.
            
            Usury also, in the West, comes from Christian theology.  Since Christ taught that you should succor your brother in his time of need, the Church declared usury (the charging of interest) a sin.  This began to change, oddly enough by the Templars (a holy order of Christian knights) who invented many of what are considered to be modern banking structures.  The Templars charged interest mostly due to costs incurred by transporting and storing gold and silver.  It's also one of the reasons the order was destroyed.
            
            But the Templars opened up a floodgate.  Venetian merchants started charging interest as well as other nascent banking groups.  As these banks proliferated, the definition of usury had to undergo a change as nobody wanted to be considered sinful for charging interest.  Thus, in time, usury came to be associated with "unfair" or abnormally high interest.  Modern government have used usury, among other tactics, to convince people that they should control the banking and monetary sectors at least in the West.  They force Third World nations to use central bank policies through organizations like the IMF.

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               Aya Katzposted 15 years agoin reply to this

               I didn't know that much about the Templars, but I knew usury was a Christian concept. That's why it's so shocking to see leftists use it!

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                  ledefensetechposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                  Many leftists are ignorant of history and they only use usury because it's a word that has shock value. Really lefties have a rather low opinion of their fellow man if they think people are as ignorant as they suppose them to be. 
                  
                  
                  
                  The problem is dutchman is that you don't have a free credit market and that because the government waffles back and forth between giving creditors more power or debtors more power in negotiating contracts that you get the unholy mess we have today.  Ideally the terms of the granting of credit would be drawn up between the two parties which should include clauses on non-payment and arbitration so that both parties are protected.

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   Aya Katzposted 15 years ago

   I assume the credit company can't raise its rate on a pre-existing debt it carries except within the notice terms set forth in the original agreement.
   
   People often don't read the original agreement.

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