What's so bad about Interest?

phoenix1

peace all

OPF say

The natural course of events doesn't have to include a TV, but people have to buy houses, transport, etc, for society to get anywhere.

Well, it doesn't matter.
You are saying that interest is bad, period. You're position would be proven wrong with a single counter-example.
I agree that today people are exploited by banks and corporations, I'm not denying that.
Just because people use the internet to spread false ideas doesn't mean we should ban the internet.

and about the houses, wouldn't the problem be solved if people just don't buy things they can't afford? Today, people who're earning 20,000 a year are buying houses worth 200,000. Well, nobody's forcing us to buy houses we don't have money for, we do it because we feel the better quality of life and possibility of more money is worth the risk.
If people just stopped buying expensive houses, wouldn't the prices go down because of low demand?
Same thing with cars, although here in the suburbs, you need to have one because everything is spread out (it takes an hour to walk everywhere). But again, people can choose not to spend money they don't have and take a different option.

You have to differentiate between rent and interest here. When renting a physical object such as a car, the car can be returned at any time, when you decide you don't need to pay for that service any longer. When taking out a loan, you cannot just return the original sum and say "here is the money I rented, thanks", you will either be charged a horrendous amount or just denied. Also, with rent, the object is always there, with money, you are expected to spend it, meaning it has to disappear and reappear + 5%

But still, I don't see what's wrong with it if both parties AGREE. I'll admit that there's a point where we start taking advantage of the other person because of their stupidity or lack of choices, but I don't see what's wrong with what I did in that example. To me it still "feels" wrong because it's been drilled into my head that interest is evil, but when I look at it objectively, I can't see where exactly the evil is.

phoenix1

riba is taking advantage of people's inability to repay loans,
which increases the divide between rich and poor.

What God is saying is that don't do money lending unless you are
willing to write-off your losses (as way of charity).

But firstly, don't lend money unless you are willing to make a loss.
In trade (business) you can make profit as well as loss. Infact that is the definition of business.

The kind of money-lending we see today the banks never make a loss. That is not trade that is riba.
When banks say they have written-off losses, they are lying ... they get it all back with interest through
insurance.

God isn't stopping you from making money from lending money, but he wants you accpet your losses aswell.
Ofcourse God doesn't want you to go crazy with the charity thing and loose all your money, it about doing
things justly and accepting losses where the client has no means to pay you ... not reposses everything he owns and drive him further into debt. In most cases you can always recover the orginal sum.

peace
No one goes into business intending to make a loss. If I can avoid making a loss, I'll do that.
Just because a business doesn't suffer a loss doesn't necessarily mean they are cheating.
If I can make money by lending money, why can't I take measures to ensure that I don't suffer heavy losses?

Zidane

Dear Lobster,

To me it still "feels" wrong because it's been drilled into my head that interest is evil, but when I look at it objectively, I can't see where exactly the evil is.

I think it's clearly unfair to me as in

Let's consider these two business

When you invest in another trade/business (for profit) you might
-Get profit (don't know how much, don't know when)
-No profit
-Loose your investment
When you loan for another trade/business or even people/countries
-You must get "your profit"/"interest" at fixed rate no matter what happens.

To me, number 2 is not fair business.

The question about mutual agreement is not the point here, two people agreeing to do a bad/unfair thing doesn't make it right. For example, two people agree to make adultery. A person agrees to be eaten and slaughtered by another person (in Germany, long ago) doesn't make it right.

Therefore, to me, interest is like a fixed profit. If the business/person encountered loss or can't really pay the interest then it will get deeper "compounding over and over" and he must be desperate to cover it all up - no matter what happens next. The deeper it gets, the deeper it enslaves.

May God Guide.

Many people have no choice so they are put into this ever-deepening enslaving. You can see many living examples of this all over the world.

May God Guide.