THIRD REASON TO ABOLISH THE SYSTEM
Centuries ago, usury was defined as any interest charged for a loan. Modern usage has redefined it as excessive interest. Certainly, any amount of interest charged for a pretended loan is excessive. The dictionary, therefore, needs a new definition. Usury: The charging of any interest on a loan of fiat money.
Let us, therefore, look at debt and interest in this light. Thomas Edison summed up the immorality of the system when he said:
People who will not turn a shovel of dirt on the project [Muscle Shoals] nor contribute a pound of materials will collect more money . . . than will the people who will supply all the materials and do all the work.
Is that an exaggeration? Let us consider the purchase of a $100,000 home in which $30,000 represents the cost of the land, architect's fee, sales commissions, building permits, and that sort of thing and $70,000 is the cost of labor and building materials. If the home buyer puts up $30,000 as a down payment, then $70,000 must be borrowed. If the loan is issued at 11% over a 30-year period, the amount of interest paid will be $167,806. That means the amount paid to those who loan the money is about 2 1/2 times greater than paid to those who provide all the labor and all the materials. It is true that this figure represents the time-value of that money over thirty years and easily could be justified on the basis that a lender deserves to be compensated for surrendering the use of his capital for half a lifetime. But that assumes the lender actually had something to surrender, that he had earned the capital, saved it, and then loaned it for construction of someone else's house. What are we to think, however, about a lender who did nothing to earn the money, had not saved it, and, in fact, simply created it out of thin air? What is the time-value of nothing?
As we have already shown, every dollar that exists today, either in the form of currency, checkbook money, or even credit card money -- in other words, our entire money supply -- exists only because it was borrowed by someone; perhaps not you, but someone.
That means all the American dollars in the entire world are earning daily and compounding interest for the banks which created them. A portion of every business venture, every investment, every profit, every transaction which involves money -- and that even includes losses and the payment of taxes -- a portion of all that is earmarked as payment to a bank.
And what did the banks do to earn this perpetually flowing river of wealth? Did they lend out their own capital obtained through investment of stockholders? Did they lend out the hard-earned savings of their depositors? No, neither of these were their major source of income. They simply waved the magic wand called fiat money.
The flow of such unearned wealth under the guise of interest can only be viewed as usury of the highest magnitude. Even if there were no other reasons to abolish the Fed, the fact that it is the supreme instrument of usury would be more than sufficient by itself.
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