Fine. What about a fixed interest rate? Do you have a problem with that?
Discussion
if it's in the contract, and it can't be changed without bilateral agreement, the interest is fine, it's baked into the deal, it's essential to the economics
you defer future gains to give someone a chance to produce better gains than you estimate you can make
that's a halal contract, and that's not what any kind of fiat money finance is about
But that (fixed interest rate loans) is all I've been talking about.
Yet you and nostr:npub1m4ny6hjqzepn4rxknuq94c2gpqzr29ufkkw7ttcxyak7v43n6vvsajc2jl have been shifting the goalposts and straw manning like crazy to make me out to be a fiat lunatic.
If you agree there is nothing wrong with freely-agreed upon fixed rate loans, then we agree and we can finally shut up. The issue started when nostr:npub1m4ny6hjqzepn4rxknuq94c2gpqzr29ufkkw7ttcxyak7v43n6vvsajc2jl seemed to allude that "any interest rate == usury"
fixed interest rates are fine, did i say they were not?
just the reneging is not ok, and that's the essence of what usury means, it's a form of theft
Nobody said that we consider them usury. We're neither Jewish nor Muslim.
I picked the building of a major road with a bridge, to illustrate the sort of project that would be difficult to finance by private interest-bearing loans. In the near past, they were financed by the state and the money was simply pressed out of the populace through taxation or through cheap loans to the private builders that were supported by inflation.
That said, full-recourse loans (as opposed to something backed by collateral) are a form of indentured servitude, if they cannot easily discharge the debt. Mortgages (except the ones that allow you to walk away and leave the key) and US student loans are typical non-dischargeable, full-recourse loans.
I did not say that. I wrote an entire wiki article describing what usury is and said that I am generally against charging interest. That is because fixing the interest and then fiddling with the monetary supply, so that inflation/deflation effects the returns, is how they get out of the clause through a back door.
They can't do that as easily with Bitcoin. So, tell me how that makes sense in a rapidly deflating currency on a mid-term or long-term contract?
Obviously, it is possible for a week. Maybe a month, for a small loan.
But... 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?
No. It is economic nonsense.
I think aside from her moral beliefs, Laeserin's mathematical point is you can't denominate loan interest in Bitcoin because it's so deflationary and you can't really expect profit on loans under the early years of a Bitcoin standard for the same reason. Equity investment might be profitable but lending becomes a charitable act while there's such a deflationary currency available. Anyone borrowing 10 BTC will have a hard time returning 10 BTC while each Satoshi is gaining value faster than the rest of the economy's assets.