Re: interest v. "usury"

From: The Trucker (mikcob_at_verizon.net)
Date: 09/05/04 

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 17:31:15 -0700

jim blair wrote:

>
> <royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:4139fd7c.3518210@news.telus.net...
>> On 4 Sep 2004 07:01:12 -0700, william_b_ryan@hotmail.com (Bill Ryan)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >In this essay Belloc differentiates interest per se
>> >from "usury," which is rightly condemned,
>>
>> For no consistently defensible reason...

Usury is rent extracted based on the need/weakness of the payer of
the rent:

http://GreaterVoice.org/econ/glossary/Economic_Rent.php

>> >and uses
>> >the terms "interest" and "profit" interchangeably,
>> >which is correct usage.
>>
>> It most certainly is not. Profit is revenue less expenses.

Correct!!! There is no distinction between interest and rent and
outright theft in this "profit".

>> Interest
>> is the difference in value between money now and money later.

Interest in classical economics is the return to capital. And since
money is not capital in the classical sense of the term then the return
to money is not interest. It is rent.

>
> Hi,
>
> Your usage makes too much sense and is too consistent with the way words
> are
> commonly used. That will not do for this bunch.

Right. The common use of the words is much to broad.

> They want two different words to mean the same thing so that no one will
> know just what they are talking about.

Actually, the opposite is true. We want words with precise definitions
as opposed to using vague definitions for a single word. Such newspeak
munging of meaning is typically used to to disguise
what is actually happening. In some contexts the word profit is fine
and in others it is not. Profit is interest + economic rent while
interest has a distinct meaning in that is a return to _real_ capital;
NOT economic rent. The income one would receive from loaning
money would be rent or a finance charge depending on circumstances.
It is as not "interest" if we want to be precise. 

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson.  http://GreaterVoice.org

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