/liberty/ - Liberty

No, there isn't. Even if you could snap your fingers and make interest rates disappear, time preference still exists. Opportunity costs still exist. Investment must still happen, and not every entrepreneur will own the capital necessary to invest in himself. Loans therefore would still take place, only they'd occur in a much less efficient and convoluted manner.

Them what would be a healthy middle ground?

>>102363

Sod off with the centrist shit. There is one correct answer in this debate and it's >>102362

>>102370

Correctness is subjective, like the awful idea of 'political correctness'

We had usury-free capitalism, it was called the Dark Ages.

An interesting, modern example is the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking_and_finance .

>>102415

Well, I happen to think that "Correctness is subjective" is a subjective statement.

>>102415

Is that an objectively correct statement?

>>102416

Sounds splendid, can we have that again?

>>102419

The only true reality is my own, and no other reality exists outside my own experience

>>102431

You can move to a Middle Eastern country.

>>102415

We're not trying to find the middle ground between a sandwich and a pile of shit. First you have to explain why not having interest rates would be a good thing.

>>102432

I reject your reality and substitute with my own!

Without interest payments the only alternative is ownership. You want $100,000 to help start up or build your new company? Fine, find a rich guy and give him a piece of your company in exchange for the $.

>>102452

But again, that doesn't even eliminate interest rates. You need to convince the guy that the present value of the lifetime returns of X% of your company is worth more than the 100,000 he puts in. Which means you need to use the probability that your business will fail combined with the investor's time preference to find the present value of your company's total profits. And the difference between the present value of those profits and the dollar value of those profits is effectively the same thing as an interest rate. You can't escape interest, you can only hide it behind other things.

>>102443

Muh technological progress

>>102451

If yours is real, I don't believe it

I can even go farther and say this is why large organizations (private and public) can claim more of your private income because "you're too successful" or "you bought a big house" where the realtor says "now give me some extra gibs because you're living too large and our company needs your shekels so we can monopolize the housing market"

>>102473

>First off it's jewish

Jews didn't invent time-preference or interest rates. The only reason they're disproportionately moneylenders is because of the historic papal ban of Catholics charging interest

>biblical heresy

No, it really isn't when you understand the historical context of what Christ said. In the Antiquity, investment loans and lending institutions didn't exist in any meaningful way. The only reason anyone borrowed money *at all* is to pay off some unexpected emergency expense. Since all loans in Christ's time were of this sort, it follows that what Christ condemned was charging interest on victims of circumstance, i.e. profiting from another's mortal suffering. Regular interest doesn't fall under this classification, as it's just a payment made for services rendered. As investment loans started to become commonplace in the Middle Ages, the Catholic ban on charging interest was lifted.

>third of all why would any government or corporation want more of your cash when you can put it to more productive use than either governments or corporations?

By definition, if there was a more productive use of my money I'd be putting my money towards *that* use instead of something else. I allow Mr. Glassberg the day trader to handle part of my savings because he's much better at investing than I am. The opportunity cost of trying to speculate on the market myself is higher than Glassberg's fee, so I fork over my shekels and let him handle it. I could spend time and effort learning how to daytrade so that I can manage my investments myself, but I like my current job a lot more than daytrading, and I don't want to experience the income hit I would take by training. So instead, I just give my shekels to Glassberg.

>>102498

1. Well I digress but can they not be so subversive?

2. Even if this is true, is there any reason other than to deprive the individual of his well earned money or what moral purposes do banks need for that extra money? It's not theirs.

3. I'm not in the business of stocktrading, but why would people have jobs in first place when they could sit around speculating the stock exchange if it's more profitable? I mean society would implode but whatever. You get more done with tools and resources than you do sitting around jerking off to bear and bull markets hoping shit will fix it itself but I forget where I am.

>>102500

They're Jews, you may as well as water to stop being wet.

>is there any reason other than to deprive the individual of his well earned money or what moral purposes do banks need for that extra money? It's not theirs.

You understand the concept of time-preference, yes? The notion that, other things equal, any one of us would prefer $100 nw over the same $100 a year from now? Therefore, it may be said that the $100 right now is more valuable than $100 a year from now. If something is valuable, then logically people are willing to pay a price for it, and logically people who own the valuable thing will demand a price for it. And that's all an interest rate is, is a price. You want X amount of money now instead of a year from now, so you're willing to pay a certain premium to get X now, even though you could get X without paying the premium if you put part of your income aside for a year. But for whatever reason you won't or can't wait that long, so instead of waiting you pay that price. And of course, the bank takes a bit of profit because they went through all the trouble of making sure they have money to give you right now, all gathered in one place so that you can get your loan near-instantly. You could probably go around to all your friends and family, and gather up a few dollars here, a few there, and promise to pay them all back at this interest rate or that interest rate, but that costs a lot of time and effort on your part. For not expending that time and effort, you're willing to pay the bank a premium for organizing everything, and charging you a single rate instead of a dozen different ones. It's no more exploitive than it is exploitive for a restaurant to charge you more than the material cost of the ingredients when you order food.

People give their money to banks voluntarily. They also take out loans voluntarily, and voluntarily pay that interest. If interest rates are so exploitive, why do people do these things of their own accord?

>why would people have jobs in first place when they could sit around speculating the stock exchange if it's more profitable?

This is a lot like asking, "why would anyone flip burgers if going into carpentry is more profitable?" For starters, people have different skills, different abilities, and different preferences. Not everyone has the skill to speculate on the stock market. Of those that do have the skill, a lot have even higher skill in some other area, meaning it's more profitable for them to go into another field. Of those that do have the skill for day trading and do it well, a lot will go into another field simply because they hate the idea of sitting inside staring at stock prices all day more than they like the extra income they'd gain from doing so.

But more to the point, even if we ignore the skill and preference barriers to day-trading, there's a natural cap on how many people will engage in it through the nature of arbitrage. All profit on the stock market (all profit everywhere really, but that's not what we're discussing) is acquired through finding and exploiting opportunities of arbitrage–buying low and selling high. This could be buying in a "low" area and selling in a "high" one, buying during a "low" time period and selling when the price is high, or any other combination you can imagine. The fewer people there are exploiting arbitrage opportunities, the more profitable it is. With fewer people, arbitrage opportunities are open for longer–the length of time before the two prices equalize is longer–and they are more dramatic–the difference between the high price and the low price is larger. If a lot of people are exploiting arbitrage opportunities, they're open for a much shorter period of time, because when you buy in the low area, you decrease the supply (thus raising the price a bit), and when you sell in the high area you increase the supply (thus lowering the price a bit). If there are more people buying and selling, this equalization happens a lot faster. And once the major arbitrage opportunities are equalized, investors have to look for much smaller ones just to make a profit. What this means is that the more people there are speculating, the less profit any one person will get. At a certain point, the profit from speculating is small enough that people move away from it and towards other methods of profit, such as a regular job. This effect holds in some way or another in all industries, and not just for businessowners, but for laborers as well. It's one of the mechanisms that naturally prevents resources from being dumped into any one area of the economy, and are instead diverted to where they are needed most.

First off people are generally stupid, the average voter is motivated by emotion, and banks take advantage of people's idiocy. And second of all if profit from stock speculation is so small, why don't people just stick to jobs that pay well and hand over the speculation to an organization that isn't motivated by a profit but rather for the betterment of mankind and the community, from city to the federal level, depending on the size of the confederation, acting as a guiding hand?

>>102505

>banks take advantage of people's idiocy.

So what? Even if this was the only thing which sustained banking profits (and it very clearly is not), why are you trying to shield stupid people from the consequences of their actions? Why are you justifying giving handouts to incompetents? If you don't make acting stupid extremely perilous and expensive, you encourage the proliferation of stupid and lazy people. You don't strike me as the type of who would want the average IQ score of a community to be lower.

>And second of all if profit from stock speculation is so small, why don't people just stick to jobs that pay well

Most of them already do.

>organization that isn't motivated by a profit but rather for the betterment of mankind and the community

What does this even mean? If it's not motivated by profit, by definition it's not speculation. Without the profit motive arbitrage can't happen at all. What does "for the betterment of mankind" mean? How do you measure this? How does this organization work towards this undefined goal? Why would it work towards this undefined goal and not just operate in its own interests? Every other government agency in existence does the same, what makes this one special? What motivates its agents to do anything for that matter, besides waste time and money mindlessly following the established bureaucratic rules, the way they do in every other state agency?

But for the sake of argument, let's set the motivation issue aside for now. Let's pretend this agency hires, and is run by, perfect incorruptible angels. What exactly does it do? What is its day-to-day operation like, and in what way does it "better the community?" How does it allocate resources without a price system? Further, how is this as-yet undefined action "better" for the community than just allowing unrestricted arbitrage? Arbitrage provides a very useful and very important service in the economy by moving resources where they are wanted least (where the price is low) to where they are wanted most (where the price is high). By doing this, arbitrage ensures demand is being met wherever possible, and helps prevent major local shortages in parts of the economy. It's the closest you'll ever get to resource redistribution that actually works, and thanks for to the profit motive arbitrage completes this duty very quickly and very efficiently. I see no reason to believe why this hypothetical agency would be able to provide something equally beneficial, and even less reason to believe it would be more beneficial, or more efficient, than the market system.

>>102506

1. More of a general statement on humanity, didn't need to be answered. And besides, that just makes a case against banks more so than humans. Humans are generally dumb and mob rule is out of the question but that's just slimeball shit.

2. Duly noted

3. That just justifies outsourcing. So you want less qualified people handling a country's labor and pricing?

>>102500

>what moral purposes do banks need for that extra money? It's not theirs

Anon, you're right that it's not their money, but if you neetsocs took a bit more time to educate yourselves on free market (ie. right-wing) economics instead of getting all your knowledge from memes and leftists, you would understand exactly why. The other anon is right, it's not borrowing and lending at an interest rate that's the problem with banks, it's fractional reserve banking, when you give your money to a bank, but the kikes that operate it will invest more than what they owe you into their shitty investment projects, ie. They won't be able to pay you back if everyone comes to collect their money in the event of a recession or something.

Get educated, it doesn't take years to figure out how this shit works, and you won't be making your arguments like an emotional woman who decides what's good and bad simply by what feels right.

>>102360

usury did nothing wrong

The historical hate towards usury comes from the fact that if you didn't pay you would be sold into slavery, put to death and other shitty stuff like this.

This means that there was no risk for the lender, if anything the lender was incentivized to lend money to people facing difficulties or mental health problems because he would get them as slaves or masturbate to having them killed, or use them as offerings to demons (jews especially did this a lot with their victims).

In the end there is nothing wrong with lending money if there is no penalty for not paying your debt outside of having to give away all your stuff up to bankruptcy. Anything else is of course immoral and not even libertarian.

So, there is a good reason for lending money and we think usury is bad because we have brought the just prejudice from thousands of years ago into today's world.

>>102513

thats why your mom has to pay me in interest for services provided.

>>102511

>educate yourself

DID. NOT. READ.

sod off with your sjw lingo

>>102507

>that just makes a case against banks more so than humans

No it doesn't, because as we already established, taking advantage of retards being retards does not account for a material part of the bank's profits. And of that tiny fraction that does, I reiterate: actions have consequences. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If you cannot accept the simple truth that actions have consequences you're no better than a commie.

>That just justifies outsourcing

We're not talking about outsourcing right now, we're talking about interest. If you don't have a proper response to the argument that interest isn't "exploitation" just admit that instead of changing the subject to something else.

>>102514

Just out of the curiosity how did the lenders get away with slavery like that? Did the state encourage them through some law or something?

>>102522

When in reality retards should take advantage of NTs because the higher the IQ the more likely they're a degenerate.

>>102526

Slavery has generally functioned due to state intervention.

>>102514

> offerings to demons (jews especially did this a lot with their victims).

citation needed

>>102526

you don't pay your debt and you become a slave. This is really bad and a great incentive to take advantage of people with mental illness. In our society, if you're a gambler only criminals will lend you money. In ancient society, the jews would lend the mentally ill money and make him a slave.

>>102590

well, that conclusion was out of instinct more than anything, but it's true that in many societies there have been death penalty and slavery as punishment for not paying your debts.

>>102526

Perfectly reasonable really. You take out a loan and use yourself as collateral. It still exists today, in a black market fashion of course, because it's a good offer if you're desperate.

The answer seems simple to me: just make the down payment the entirety of the interest.

>>102621

Doesn't that defeat the point?

>>102360

sound money. if someone was hoarding it to drive up the value it would drive investment into other assets

>>102622

Why would it? Down payments already exist. If you're in a position where you can't afford to put any money down, you probably shouldn't be taking out a loan.

>>102511

That's actually a pretty solid compromise imo. Growth will certainly be hindered, but it provides economic security in the long term.

It would make it much harder to implement Keynesian policies since there would be much less panic and stability.

>>102514

Usury is still effectively selling us into slavery though… Just in a more widespread and tactful way.

>>102360

Of al the beautiful things people could take from Aristotle, they decide to go with usury: https://acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-4-number-4/economics-catholic-world

This nigga >>102362 has figured it out. People take interest for a reason, and if interest is higher than you'd like (there is no objective standard for it being too high), then there is a reason for it. What we have nowadays is interest rates being too low across the board and lawyers and companies trying to compensate by demanding five euro for every letter they have to send you, and another hundred euro for "legal counsel" (they don't seek legal counsel, no collection firm wastes time with that before it collects). They do that precisely because interest rates are set too low for the time-preference people have. We're living in rather insecure times, and people cannot wait ten months before they are paid for their work. The interest-rate on debt is supposed to express that.