What About Usury statutes . . .

1 The name “usury statute” has misled people into think that usury, per se, must be bad, because the obvious purpose of any law is to “prevent people from doing it”, whatever it happens to be. Well, maybe yes; and maybe no.

2 Actually, usury statutes do not act as a bar to usury at all. They simply act as a bar to payments believed by some people to be “too high” which falsely implies that payments which seem to be “too high” are usury.

3 Through uncritical acceptance of this implied but false concept of usury statutes, Americans developed their deeply-rooted and equally false concept of usury.

4 If I were to borrow a truck from you, and if the rental fee were considered by some of our neighbors to be “too high”, is that rental fee any of our neighbor’s business? Of course not.

5 If we arrived at our agreement without the influence of force or fraud, is our agreement somehow illegal, immoral, unethical, and within the legal purview of our neighbors? No it's not at all.

6 Suppose our neighbors got together and decided that the rental fee I agreed to pay you for something was “too high.”

7 If they pass a law that says any rental payment over a certain amount is against the law, are our neighbors acting morally, ethically, or legally”? Most certainly not.

8 Assume further that our neighbors did pass such a law, and suppose I went ahead and paid you the rental fee we had agreed upon.

9 If I did pay you the rental fee we had agreed upon, you would be the one who violated the law; you would be the one arrested, and not me.

10 Even though I made the payment of my own free will, you would be the one to go to jail.

11 Is this right, moral ethical and legal”? Absolutely not.

12 In summary; a law which attempts to limit the amount I may pay you for the using-up or the rental of your truck is called a usury statute.

13 Thus, we are compelled to conclude that usury statutes are immoral, unethical, contrary to common sense, contrary to free agency and free enterprise, and contrary to the common law.