Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Debt Cieling Absurdism

In the latest Distributionist review Kevin O’Brien outlines the problem with usury and our government debt.

"Somewhere Hilaire Belloc says that an economic system based on usury must always by its nature collapse.

In Economics for Helen Hilaire Belloc outlines in his admirably lucid manner the following principles of usury.
Belloc writes:

1. Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society because it is the claim for an increase of wealth which is not really present at all. It is trying to get something where there is nothing out of which that something can be paid.

2. This action must therefore progressively and increasingly soak up the wealth which men produce into the hands of those who lend money, until at last all the wealth is so soaked up and the process comes to an end.

3. That is what has happened in the case of the modern world, largely through unproductive expenditure on war, which expenditure has been met by borrowing money and promising interest upon it although the money was not producing any further wealth.

4. The modern world has therefore reached a limit in this process and the future of usurious investment is in doubt."

1 comment:

K T Cat said...

Pish posh. Usury is the rent you pay for the money you're borrowing. If you don't want to pay interest, don't borrow.