William Greider: "Usury...is rich people taking advantage of poor people....This is Usury." [View All]

from PBS:



BILL MOYERS: With me now is one of America's leading chroniclers of money, power, and politics, who says what's happening is the disgrace of Wall Street, its excesses paid for by people like those in Cleveland and millions like them around the country.

William Greider has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. Once a top editor of THE WASHINGTON POST, a columnist for ROLLING STONE, and now National Affairs Correspondent for THE NATION, he has produced a series of best-selling books: SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE: HOW THE FEDERAL RESERVE RUNS THE COUNTRY, ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT: THE MANIC LOGIC OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE: THE BETRAYAL OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, and this one, THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM. He's working on a new book with the title: COME HOME, AMERICA.

Good to see you in person.

WILLIAM GREIDER: Thanks Bill.

BILL MOYERS: What were you thinking as you saw that report from Cleveland?

WILLIAM GREIDER: Made me angry all over again, even though I know the story. And then I thought, "This is usury." This is a living example of what the Bible prohibited, which is the sin of usury. Most Americans have never heard of it probably.

BILL MOYERS: Usury?

WILLIAM GREIDER: Usury, to be clear about it, is rich people taking advantage of poor people by lending them money on terms that are sure to make them fail. All three of the great religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, had a moral prohibition against usury because they recognized that society can't function like that. People of great wealth and their institutions like banks naturally have the power to overwhelm people of lesser means. And you can't allow that in a decent society. It won't survive.

BILL MOYERS: Where were the gatekeepers? Where were the watchdogs? Why did it take the Fed so long to put an end to-

WILLIAM GREIDER: Well-

BILL MOYERS: -predatory practices?

WILLIAM GREIDER: To make the story overly crude, Congress repealed the law against usury. It was done in 1980 by a Democratic Congress, Democratic President. And, of course, the Republicans all piled on and voted for it. And that was the first stroke, only the first of many, in which they stripped away the regulatory laws from the financial system and from banking.

And that allowed the free market modernized gimmicks of one kind or another, all these things we're now reading about, to flourish. And that's where we are. I mean, the gatekeepers said to the banking industry and to the financial industry, "We don't think federal control or regulation is good for you, so we're, therefore, liberating you to do your own thing." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07182008/transcript2.html