WHY YOU CAN'T SAVE

     Would you be surprised to learn that poverty is America's destiny under the current economic system? As reactions follow from actions, and as fruit bears the same nature as the planted seed, so poverty is the bitter harvest of our nation violating Natural Law, even though most of us don't know we are doing anything wrong. Ignorance of the law does not free us from it's consequences. What are we doing to deserve poverty, and how can we change it? The law that America is violating, the law that guarantees our destiny of poverty, is the practice of usury, defined as the loaning of money at any rate of interest. This seemingly benevolent practice is in fact a theft forbidden by the Bible (1), by ecclesiastical (i.e., church) law, and by the common law (the law of the land). Usury has since been legalized by statute. (2)

     While usury is the basis of most of the world's banking systems, this doesn't make the practice acceptable or right; it only makes the consequences more widespread and severe. It's global practice explains why everyone is struggling to make ends meet, and why most governments around the world are on the verge of bankruptcy. Usury, surprisingly, is responsible for virtually all the economic problems we are experiencing today.

     The main problems with usury are that people make money without producing anything for it, and the money grows at a very rapid compound interest rate (i.e. exponentially). In little time, a country can be bankrupted by people who make money on their money and produce nothing for it. For example, suppose we want America to be wealthy; suppose we want 50 million Americans each to have a savings of $10,000 in the bank. Let's see why this can never happen -- why Americans are not allowed to save. 50 million people with $10,000 totals $500 billion in the banks. If people were allowed to save money, then after the first year they will be paid 6% after-tax interest, or $30 billion. In the 40th year they will get $309 billion in interest. In the 80th year, they will receive $3.2 trillion in interest, nearly the total output of the nation. In any given year, each person will get paid his interest, and there is nothing to prevent it. No year is any different from any other, so if the people get paid $30 billion interest in the first year, they will get paid $3 trillion interest in the 80th, guaranteed by the FDIC and government. To allow Americans to save $10,000 at compound interest, would within a few decades bankrupt the nation. This is why immense system pressures work to prevent Americans from saving their money.

     These pressures include: Rising prices (interest earnings loses most of its value); Bankruptcies (savings is taken from you); Unemployment (forces you to spend your savings); Business cycle and recession (forces bankruptcies and unemployment); Welfare (pays the unemployed; can't let you starve); Inheritance tax (takes away a lifetime of interest earnings); Heavy taxes (takes your money so you can't save); etc. That Americans cannot save is confirmed by statistics. The average American, if he cashed out all his assets and paid off his liabilities, would either own nothing, or be in debt to the system (3). If Americans cannot save, then America cannot become wealthy, and our destiny must be poverty. If you cannot save, you cannot prepare for your retirement, and government must step in with social security and welfare. Nor can you save for your children's college education; the system promotes an uneducated nation. When the wife is forced into the workplace just to make ends meet, mother is no longer at home, and the family structure is destroyed.

     While Americans on the average cannot save, this does not mean that individuals cannot save, especially those who designed the system and know how to resist the system pressures over a long period of time; these people are fabulously wealthy. If a small number such as 10,000 people deposit $10 million into a bank at 6% interest, in 80 years their money will multiply by 100 times, to $10 trillion. Interest paid on $10 trillion is $600 billion, roughly equivalent to federal income taxes. This is how the wealthy class of our society produces nothing and lives off of the producers. Usury is a large hidden tax. How do you pay this hidden tax? Interest costs to businesses are passed on to consumers in the form of rising prices. In 1962, interest was only 4% of corporate operating revenue; by 1984 it exceeded 40% (4). Since interest grows very rapidly, it is the true cause of annually rising prices.

     Isn't it the American dream to deposit money in the bank and live off the interest? Don't we all hope to deposit $10,000 in the bank when we are 25, and retire at age 65 when our money grows to $100,000? Did you not consider that if you worked for the first $10,000, nine other people had to work to give you the other $90,000? Interest means that you make money without producing anything for it. Isn't this theft? I believe that Natural Law will set it up so that others will harvest your crop; the books will eventually be balanced. So many ills are the direct result of usury, no wonder it was prohibited. The purpose of money is to exchange wealth, not create it without productivity. Our nation must choose between prosperity and usury. Repeal usury and the ills will disappear automatically.

     The prohibition of loaning money at interest cannot be considered any more radical an idea than keeping a system that doesn't work. The Arabs do not practice usury, but invest money instead. Investment means you are a part owner. You share in the risk and the profits, and you are paid on the basis of productivity. Interest means you get paid on the basis of time, whether or not anything is produced, and there is no risk (guaranteed by the FDIC). Not only did the Bible forbid usury, but every seven years all debts were forgiven and land reverted to it's rightful owner (the Jubilee; see Leviticus 25:13-16, 25:23, and 25:29-31). If we wanted, we could even create a totally debt-free system. Yes, alternate systems do exist and do work. Especially since our current theft-based system obviously doesn't.

ENDNOTES

(1) Anti-Usury Statutes: (King James Version)

Exodus 22:25: "...thou shalt not be to him as a usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury."

Leviticus 25:36-37: "Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." (The King James version, while more difficult to understand, is at least correct in its translation when compared to the clearer New International version, which states: "You must not lend him money at interest or SELL him food at a profit." SELL should have been LEND.)

Deuteronomy 23:19-20: "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:."

Proverbs 28:8: "He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.

(2) "At common law, the taking of any interest whatever was illegal, and the right to charge it, being a privilege granted by statute, is subject to legislative control." [Equitable Credit & Discount Co. v. Geier, 21 A. 2d 53, 58 (1941)]

(3) A study by the Federal Reserve Board of all financial assets held by individuals (excluding what was held by institutions), and calculating their net financial worth (assets minus debts) reported the following:

. . . 54 percent of the total net financial assets were held by the 2 percent of families with the greatest amount of such assets and 86 percent by the top 10 percent; 55 percent of the families in the sample had zero or negative net worth. ["Secrets of the Temple", William Greider, Simon and Schuster, 1987, p. 39]

(4) According to "The Spotlight", Nov. 9, 1987 issue, in the article "Market Collapse Inevitable" (p.1):

Even so-called conventional debt turned into a stranglehold on productive enterprises, which set aside four cents out of every dollar in operating revenue for debt service in 1962. By 1984, Wall Street analysts note, debt obligation jumped more than 10-fold; debt service for the average industrial firm ate up more than 40 cents of every dollar earned.