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Should usury be legal?

By usury I'm talking interest-bearing loans in general. I know there are usury laws prohibiting interest at a certain rate, but I'm referring to interest lending in the more general sense.

Here's my take:

Almost all of us are touched by and benefit from some form of usury. Even if the drawbacks outweigh those benefits, which is debatable, we all benefit either directly or indirectly. It shapes markets.

Supposedly it creates wealth because a certain percentage (say 80%) of every loaned dollar will be spent, and then a percentage of that will be spent by the person who receives it. And by the next person. And so on.

Usury allows us to purchase homes, cars, and college tuition at prices we would not be able to pay based on our wages and savings. However, because loans are available to everyone, their is a bigger pool of potential buyers for a given supply of goods, which supports higher prices. The cost is even higher when you factor in the interest you will pay on a loan for these price-inflated good. Even if you choose to avoid this interest cost by not taking out a loan, you are still buying and selling goods in markets which are inflated by many financed consumers. In essence, you can opt out of taking a loan, but you can't opt out of being part of a market inflated by usury.

If we ended all usury today, I think the pain would be extreme. Who would have paid for a $300,000 house knowing no one would be able to afford anything close to that because usury was ended? What would happen to our markets and currency value if suddenly no one had borrowed money to spend, and the people who sold to borrowers had no more eligible buyers? Who would be hurt worse? The 'skilled' workers or the producers of tangible things?

And as far as I'm aware, the only difference between lending with interest and usury is the connotation. The latter being negative. Correct me if I'm wrong on that point.

What are your thoughts?

edit: many small edits

By usury I'm talking interest-bearing loans in general. I know there are usury laws prohibiting interest at a certain rate, but I'm referring to interest lending in the more general sense. Here's my take: Almost all of us are touched by and benefit from some form of usury. Even if the drawbacks outweigh those benefits, which is debatable, we all benefit either directly or indirectly. It shapes markets. Supposedly it creates wealth because a certain percentage (say 80%) of every loaned dollar will be spent, and then a percentage of that will be spent by the person who receives it. And by the next person. And so on. Usury allows us to purchase homes, cars, and college tuition at prices we would not be able to pay based on our wages and savings. However, because loans are available to everyone, their is a bigger pool of potential buyers for a given supply of goods, which supports higher prices. The cost is even higher when you factor in the interest you will pay on a loan for these price-inflated good. Even if you choose to avoid this interest cost by **not** taking out a loan, you are still buying and selling goods in markets which are inflated by many financed consumers. In essence, you can opt out of taking a loan, but you can't opt out of being part of a market inflated by usury. If we ended all usury today, I think the pain would be extreme. Who would have paid for a $300,000 house knowing no one would be able to afford anything close to that because usury was ended? What would happen to our markets and currency value if suddenly no one had borrowed money to spend, and the people who sold to borrowers had no more eligible buyers? Who would be hurt worse? The 'skilled' workers or the producers of tangible things? And as far as I'm aware, the only difference between lending with interest and usury is the connotation. The latter being negative. Correct me if I'm wrong on that point. What are your thoughts? edit: many small edits

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[–] • 2 pts

Any type of agreement between two people, whether the interest rate is one goat per day or 10000% per year, should be legal. Only fraud should be illegal- tricking a person to enter into an agreement with you. Usury in the way AOC has been tweeting about lately, as in high rates that take advantage of the poor, should not be regulated by the govt. If you take out a loan with an extremely high interest rate, you should be thankful that it is the best rate you can find. The only thing the govt will accomplish if it caps credit card interest rates at 15% is that it will make it illegal for people to get credit card at all who were going to be charged more than 15%. Since the banks will lose revenue, they'll have to raise the rates of the people who still qualify.

In terms of usury and our economy, if it 'went away' we would be living in the stone age. Literally. The only form of currency would be gold itself. Our modern money systems are built on debt, not the underlying value of anything. Fractional reserve money and fiat money are both based in debt.

The mechanism by which we 'print' money is a form of usury. The fed doesn't just print it and shovel it into the streets. The US Treasury deposits a bogus check, which would bounce if deposited in any other bank on earth other than the Fed, and the fed accepts that check and prints money to give back to the Treasury. Our entire monetary system is built on usury.

[–] • 1 pt

It means that a dollar bill represents usury. It is usury. If all usury went away, all dollars would go away. We would have to trade and barter.

There are no skilled workers in the US if usury went away. It would take over a decade for us to build a manufacturing infrastructure to support our consumption. In the meantime, we would have nothing. We are the beneficiaries of the global gravy train, because we are the biggest users of usury on earth. Other countries toil away making actual goods, and we send them pieces of paper in return.

[–] • 0 pt

Interesting. With regards to our currency, is it a good thing we have it this way?

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

It's great for Americans right now, because we don't have to do anything and the rest of the world ships us their products and we give them worthless paper in return. It's terrible for us in the long run, and will ultimately be the end of the country, because the fall of most civilizations throughout history has been brought on by its government devaluing their currency. Inflation is the silent tax. It destroys the purchasing power of our money. It's the reason why the working man gets poorer and poorer. People think that government entitlement programs are going to equal the playing field, but it only exacerbates the problem and sends us hurdling even faster towards monetary chaos. The only real way to help the poor in the long run is to build a factory and hire them to work in it. Our electorate is not prepared for something like that though, and they will ultimately vote in more entitlement programs and choose to sit on their ass and get free stuff. When China decides that our ride on the global gravy train is over, we'll be the financial equivalent of Venezuela, ie nobody will be able to afford milk at $500 a gallon and people will be burning dollars in the street to stay warm. The government will start a bread line, and everybody will have the socialism that they want.