An Essay About Usury By Michael Murphy

"Why is usury strictly prohibited by God? Why is it in its essence, evil? It is quite easy to understand in our time, under the structure of the present world economy. All the money in use today (money as we generally understand it), is lent into existence (at interest) by the central banks of the major corporate and industrial nations--the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States, The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

We are speaking here of money, as money has come to be defined for us over time, for in reality the money we use--whether it be cowrey shells or dollars--is, firstly, a way of keeping an impersonal account of all of our transactions, but more importantly a substitution, not for the things we buy and sell but for the labor and the time it actually took to make a product or provide a service--a point well worth noting, for those who actually perform work with their hands, or render services to others, possess all the true wealth in the world. (When the crises come, and they will come, we will not be able to eat money...think about that...Zephaniah 1:14-18). So how did they, who do no actual work with their own hands, get to be in charge of all the money in the world? Think about that)

The overall supply of money is regulated into the economy (according to the shifting concerns of the central bankers) through the large commercial as well as neighborhood banks with which we in turn do business. The banks in turn support themselves through further investments in the economy (investments in the labors of other human beings) and the charging of interest (usury). When a borrower goes to the bank for a loan, whether it be a government, a large corporation or a private individual, it promises to pay back a sum of money greater than the sum they borrowed. The wickedness begins at this point. Where will the borrower get the money to pay the interest (usury) on the loan? This money does not exist anywhere in the economy. It is not there. Only the total amount of the principle on all loans exists in the economy, because that is all that was borrowed or lent into existence.

The amount of the interest (usury) due is not to be found, anywhere. It was never lent into the total supply of money upon which everybody in the economy draws. So where does the borrower go to get this added money that they owe on their loans if it doesn't exist--so that they may remain as members in good standing in the economic system, so that they may continue to borrow in the future?

They must figure out how to shift more of the existing supply of money in the economy in their own direction. They must, right along with the rich and powerful who have made a cunning art of such manipulations (they like to think it is a science), steal it from the existing supply of money. Between them they must either inflate the cost of their products and services, or what they believe is their own labors, which in either case favors the processes operating from the top of the
economy down, at the ongoing expense, however, of those who dwell at the bottom of the economy and who actually do all the work." (snip)

http://www.revelation2seven.org/AboutMike.htm

NOTE: I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Murphy in June 2004. He was on a panel with myself when we were discussing "usury" at the Community Currency Conference at Bard College in New York state.