Debt Slavery:

The Catholic Encyclopedia

Usury

In the article INTEREST we have reserved the question of the lawfulness of taking interest on money lent; we have here to consider first, usury as condemned by all honest men.

The problem with allowing this practice, is that it is specifically designed as an economic tool, by economists to trap the consumer. In some countries to-day debt-slavery is still a function of the economy, with entire generations trapped in a legal nightmare. The new faith in economics requires you to be in debt. If you want to retire that is. Whose idea was retirement anyway. Perhaps my children can put me to work cutting the grass with scissors, or throwing salt on slugs. Get back at me for the horrible things I made them do.

I think all of your psychaedelic religious fantasies have a problem with usury. Mainly because it only creates one thing, and that is slavery. Some slaves are kept in far superior accommodations in the western industrialized world. These slaves have taken too much out of the world economy and now the world economy wants to balance the books. That’s the un-non-religious view. I hope you read the whole thing. I am trying to keep the wordiness down!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Usury (pronounced /ˈjuːʒəri/, comes from the Medieval Latin usuria, “interest” or “excessive interest”, from the Latin usura “interest”) originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change. After countries legislated to limit the rate of interest on loans, usury came to mean the interest above the lawful rate. In common usage today, the word means the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest. As such, the term is largely derived from Abrahamic religious principles and Riba is the corresponding Islamic term. The primary focus in this article is on the Christian tradition.

The pivotal change in the English-speaking world seems to have come with the permission to charge interest on lent money: particularly the Act ‘In restraint of usury’ of Henry VIII in England in 1545 (see book references).