Stones Cry Out

Of course an alternative to further government manipulation of markets is simply to have the government stop manipulating the markets to favor petroleum.

The reason there is not a lot of alternative fuel development is given the government protection of the oil industry it is not economically viable. If it were possible to make barrels of money selling alternative fuels someone would be doing it.

The market has been manipulated and pushed. If you're not satisfied with the direction it has been pushed, the answer might not be a push in another direction.

You make numerous assertions with no support. Does this make you a "good republican"?

Just go here- it's about gas prices after Katrina, but it's a great arguement for free-market economics.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8790

Or how about just have prices reflect genuine costs?

(As in, our personal auto prices $15,000 for a car and $3/gal for gas) don't BEGIN to cover all the costs associated with personal autos. There are 40,000 lives ended each year in the US in auto wrecks, millions wounded by cars, Billions spent on road infrastructure, Billions spent on defense, hundreds of thousands of asthmatics and other people made ill by pollution, the inestimable cost in damage to our air, land and water... ALL of these things have costs associated with them that are not being paid for by motorists.

How do good republicans feel about Actual Cost Pricing?

Hi Rick,

Your piece is filled with assumptions; some debatable, some outright wrong.

At this point in time, petroleum consumption is sustainable. The known supplies of oil in the ground has been increasing, not decreasing, even as more oil is consumed. At the point in time when consumption at current levels is not sustainable, the price will reflect the supply. If the price of oil goes up, alternative fuels will become more attractive to the market.

The United States is the country that uses the most petroleum products and is also a country with one of the cleanest environments. Saudi Arabia produces the most petroleum and it also has a clean environment. There are many countries that produce and use petroleum that do not have clean environments, but it is more a function of the other countries than it is petroleum.

Petroleum dollars do support terrorist countries as do sneaker dollars, and shirt dollars and just about every other dollars. Petroleum dollars also support free countries as do other trade dollars. You stated a fact like it leads to an obvious conclusion, but unless you want to stop all trade, it is an irrelevant point.

I am not aware of market theory failing. To tell you the truth, it is not clear what you are talking about. Using a generic term as a boogie man is not clear thinking or clear writing. Do you mean the capitalism of supply and demand? Supply and demand has never failed except when the government has set a price.

We design our regions to accommodate what the majority of the people want, not what you want. If the majority of people wanted to ride the metro, we would build more metro’s. On occasion, people do have to sacrifice a little freedom. Thankfully, we do not have to ride on buses and trains, and hopefully, we never will.

Poisonous air, polluted runoff, acid rain, terrorist attacks – are not products of our reliance on oil. The environment in America is cleaner than 100 years ago. Life expectancy in America and most of the world continues to rise. I did not face the dangers my parents faced and my children do not face the dangers I faced. In 1940 America produced all of its own oil and we were still attacked by the Japanese who were infinitely more capable of destroying America than middle eastern terrorists. Terrorism is a result of evil than must be defeated, usually one generation at a time. A little oil goes a long way in running the machinery we need to fight terrorism.

A good person, not just a good Republican, knows that markets are never perfect. However, a mature person would never try to fix an imperfect market with a much more obtrusive new bureaucracy. A good person would also never support the use of tax money to reduce freedom and bypass market forces.

I agree that there are many ignorant Republicans. However, Republicans who understand Friedman and Laffer economics are not the ignorant ones. Perhaps it others who are ignorant.

D. Smith said:
"Poisonous air, polluted runoff, acid rain, terrorist attacks – are not products of our reliance on oil."

I'm curious. What are these the products of?

My answer is they are certifiably the products of our reliance on fossil fuels AND other unsustainable lifestyles.

Is our air, etc. cleaner than it was 100 years ago? In some places, yes. But that is only because in some places 100 years ago, things were pretty damned dirty.

If I clean up one corner of a pigsty so that it is less filthy, that doesn't make the pigsty clean.

Did you know that worldwide, there are some 3 million people who die from pollutants EACH YEAR?!

We've a ways to go, yet.

Hi Dan,

No, I did not know that 3 million people die from pollutants each year worldwide, and you don’t KNOW either.

I do KNOW that there are people who have had their life shortened by pollutants and I also KNOW that just about every person in the world has had their life improved by petroleum products.

The pollutants from petroleum and petroleum processing can easily be controlled to the point of having no affect on anyone’s lifespan. As the use of petroleum products has increased, life expectancy has also increased throughout the world. Some of the increase is directly due to plastic medical products.

If a better product than plastic is available at a better price, we should us it as a substitute. If a better product than gas is available at a reasonable price, we should use it. However, if we continue to rely on gas and plastics, we will continue to be fine and probably continue to have increased standards of living.

Sounds like you're playing with semantics to me. People's lives are shortened rather than dying? Okay, fine.

The WHO tells us:
"Outdoor air pollution harms more than 1.1 billion people, mostly in cities (196). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 700,000 deaths annually could be prevented in developing countries if three major atmospheric pollutants—carbon monoxide, suspended particulate matter, and lead—were brought down to safer levels."

(The 3 million number includes non-fossil fuel-based pollution).

Now, I'd like to know how we've had our lives improved by petroleum?

My guess would be that you'd say we're able to get places faster and more comfortable and we're able to create cheaper "stuff," which can then be wrapped cheaply in plastic and placed inside a plastic container for clean marketing.

These are, to a certain way of thinking, improvements. But these improvements are marginal and related to comfort. The costs are life and death and increased illness. I don't think that the benefits I've mentioned outweigh the human costs. Do you have other, more substantial benefits?

Hi Dan,

I am not playing semantics. You wrote, and I agreed, in a comment to a different piece, that words have meaning. There is a vast difference between a variable that shortens life and a variable that ends life. We can avoid most of the variables that shorten life without any government interference. We can partake in the activities and variables that extend life without government interference. However, we made need the help of government to prevent the variables that actually end life. It seems to me like you are the one being less than clear, not me.

I don’t know what WHO means by the word “harm”. I am harmed by the ants that occasionally make their way into my house, but I don’t need a big government program to stop the ants. I can spray a few petroleum chemicals on them and be un-harmed.

Carbon monoxide, suspended particulate matter, and lead can all be brought down to safer levels in the rest of the world without reducing oil consumption, just like all three were brought down in the United States as we continued to increase are use of petroleum and petroleum products.

Do you really not know how your life has been improved by petroleum? Do you really not know how plastic affects the health of the world? Do you really not understand how inexpensive transportation is a factor in your quality of life?

It is my belief that the great majority of the US has been sold a bill of goods that modernization - with all that entails - has created a great world for us. I reject that paradigm.

Our transportation is not inexpensive. It is costly and the great majority of the costs have gone unpaid, pushed on to the poor, our children, God's Creation.

As I've already said, our transportation prices do not accurately reflect our transportation costs.

So, the short answer is, No. I do not know how my life has been improved by petroleum. I know how the marketers would have us believe it has benefitted my life, but I don't believe them.

Honestly, could you give me a list of ten positives that have resulted from our petroleum-based culture? (Positives that aren't about mere ease of life issues and artificially low costs borne by others.)

Hi Dan,

I didn’t mind discussing this issue or any issue with you as long as you were being rational. However, if you can’t name 10, 100, or even more, ways that petroleum products have improved the health and standard of living in the world without my help, then I think my efforts to help you would be futile.

Sorry, there is a minimum level of rationality required for any rational discussion.

I can think of ways that petroleum products have helped. Ambulances. Fire Engines. Electricity. I can think of some, okay?

My very rational point is, I can think of few reasons for doing things the way we are doing them that are worth the 700,000 lives that are shortened each year due to air pollution, not to mention the 1 million lives that are taken in auto wrecks, not to mention the damage to the planet, not to mention the bill we're leaving our children.

Would I outlaw ambulances, fire engines? No. They are helpful, they save lives.

Would I discourage (not outlaw) the personal auto? Yes, they are marginally helpful and they only take lives (that is, the personal auto is not a life-saving device, but it does take lives, so the convenience it offers does not outweigh the damage it inflicts).

Is that not rational?

One argument often offered in response to my thoughts about changing the way we do things to more rational and sustainable policies, is to say "people's lives are lost in hospitals every day - would you outlaw them?"

The difference is that hospitals are in the business of saving lives. Petroleum society is in the business of easing life.

If 700,000 people are killed in hospitals every year but hospitals save 1,000,000, then it's rational to continue to have hospitals.

If 700,000 + people have their lives shortened each year due to petroleum society and the only benefit we get is the ease of life (which is mostly for the wealthiest part of the world), are you saying that it would be rational to continue that policy?

So, I'm asking for 10...or just THREE examples of how our petroleum society AS IT IS NOW benefits our world in ways that justify the losses associated with it. I am being quite rational.

To defend the status quo blindly without offering reasons to justify that defense seems to me to border on the irrational.

Having said that, I do understand that if you thought I couldn't think of any benefits of petroleum society, that you might think I'm being irrational. I was assuming you could get my point and trying to be brief for benefit of space limitations.

But now, I've hopefully better defined what I'm looking for. I DO see benefits, but I question their validity in face of the negatives associated with them.

And, for consideration, as any one tries to come up with just 3 benefits of petroleum society as it currently is, keep in mind that ambulances, etc. are not a benefit - I'm not saying they should go away.

What? No takers?

No?

Okay. Here's another question. And please don't write me off as being unreasonable and think that you can therefore not answer the questions. These ARE very legitimate questions and a lack of answers, I would hope, would cause not hard feelings but soul-searching.

Another way of looking at the problem of our petrochemical society are the costs associated with it and who pays the cost. Conservatives and anyone concerned about personal and fiscal responsibility should be very concerned about this issue, and Christians should be at the top of the list in matters of economic justice.

Some short stats:

In Kentucky, according to a typical 2003 Kentucky Traffic Report produced by the state police, the economic costs to Kentucky was between $2.1 billion and $6 billion. That's counting lost wages, lost tax income, hospital bills, etc. That's not counting what insurance paid on these bills.

One other stat, from Ky Lung Association, in 1998, 209,000 Kentuckians had asthma which resulted in a cost to KY of $159 million.

My honest question is: Who should pay this cost?

Right now, the cost is borne by the victims and by taxpayers at large and by the environment. Would people interested in personal responsibility advocate for the costs to be borne by the ones causing the problems or allow it to be borne by victims, our children and taxpayers at large?

Please consider and answer.

Thanks.

"Would I discourage (not outlaw) the personal auto? Yes, they are marginally helpful and they only take lives..."-Dan
Tell that to the folks that evacuated NO in thier personal auto's.
Just curious, how do you feel about nuclear power? No carbon monoxide, no particulate, no lead...

Dan, you also have a problem with your Kentucky cost analysis- it's not a cost/benefit analysis. How can I determine if the costs are worth it if you haven't also told me the benefits? and you clearly don't live in Los Angeles.

Well, Douglas, that's what I'm seriously asking: What are the benefits that outweigh these costs?

I've seen no studies and the KY Police didn't present a cost/benefit analysis, so I couldn't present it here. I mean, as I've said, I can think of some benefits, but I personally can't think of enough to outweigh the costs.

As to the NO exodus example: wouldn't people have been better off if there were a mass transit solution? Do you recall all the people stuck behind all the other people trying to get out of Texas in their personal auto? I don't think the mass exodus is a very valid argument for the personal auto.

As to Nuclear power, I'm doubtful of its benefits until we can find a safe way to deal with its offal. Transporting it all across the country so that we can bury it next to our drinking water seems like a faulty solution. I wouldn't want to trade one unsustainable system for another.

Now, tell me this: What is wrong with encouraging trying to find ways to live without a personal auto: living in smaller circles, doing more walking, biking, mass transit, etc? And I've already said I don't really buy the "It limits freedom" argument because our current choices also limit freedom. And once again, I'm talking about just being personally responsible.

Here's an example: I could more cheaply and more conveniently get rid of my household wastes by opening my back door and throwing stuff in my neighbor's back yard. Then we could get rid of that gov't-imposed taxes for garbage collection that interferes with my spending money.

What's the problem with this? Well, obviously, it's simply wrong of me to deal with my wastes in that manner.

But this is what we're doing with our personal auto society, throwing the environmental and economic waste off on someone else. It seems wrong to me, but I'd be glad to be educated otherwise.

"As to the NO exodus example: wouldn't people have been better off if there were a mass transit solution?"-Dan

There was a mass transit solution, and it would've worked for those without personal autos, but there would never be sufficient capacity for the entire population of a major city to be transported out via mass transit- especially given that mass transit rail systems are local- they don't go 'out'.

"As to Nuclear power, I'm doubtful of its benefits until we can find a safe way to deal with its offal. Transporting it all across the country so that we can bury it next to our drinking water seems like a faulty solution."-Dan

A rather simplistic and unscientific explanation of the disposal process proposed by the govt. You may find it 'scary', but if France can manage to get 80% of it's electriciy from nuclear plants without incident, and with the enviromental activists they have, you can't tell me we couldn't do that too.

"I've seen no studies and the KY Police didn't present a cost/benefit analysis, so I couldn't present it here."-Dan

You're awfully dedicated to your worldview without knowing the contra argument. I question the wisdom of your arguments on that basis alone. Perhaps you need to study the productivity and prosperity benefits of people having personal transportation. Also consider that many people, like me, are self employed, and have clients all over town, and have to travel to various govt offices in various locations to work. I can't move closer to work, and I'm not sure it's fair to catagorize that travel as 'personal'.

"Now, tell me this: What is wrong with encouraging trying to find ways to live without a personal auto: living in smaller circles, doing more walking, biking, mass transit, etc?"-Dan

Nothing, but you're not encouraging, you're preaching, and about something it seems you've a bit more study to do before you present a fully thought out opinion on.

I also think you'd make a much larger difference focusing on cleaning up China, India, and southeast Asia- they produce far more pollution than do we.

I also suspect you're under 30 years old, so you don't realize how much cleaner the air is in just that period of time (especially here in Los Angeles).

Also, on another thread you questioned how a christian could support the free market (capitalism). I'm no biblical scholar or theologian, but how about the parable of the talents. It may not be support for a free market, but it's hardly a condemnation.

Douglas said:
"you're preaching, and about something it seems you've a bit more study to do before you present a fully thought out opinion on..."

What I'm doing is presenting a problem. I'm not advocating the other side (personal auto as a solution), yet you want ME to find the benefits of YOUR solution? I'm telling you I don't know of enough benefits - it's your system, you defend it. Or investigate it further or join with me in seeking alternative solutions.

This is what I'm saying: There are problems with our present solution: Problem A, B and C. Unless you have evidence that A, B and C are NOT a problem, it falls on your shoulders to defend the system or agree with me that A, B and C ought to be changed.

Or perhaps another scenario would help:
Suppose I found a leak in my neighbor's sewage pipe. I've informed the neighbor of the leak and the damage it is causing to our groundwater (not to mention the stink in the air).

Your suggestion is akin to the neighbor telling me in this situation, "Well, I might fix it, but first tell me how much it will cost." HE'S the one causing damage that I've already documented. It's not on my shoulders to find out how much it will cost him to fix it!

Am I wrong here, in feeling your request is a bit upside down?

Once again I'll say it, I'm just talking about personal responsibility. I'm for it. Pay as you go. Clean up as you go. "Leave it cleaner than you found it," say the boy scouts. "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it." says Genesis 2:15

As to my age, I'm 42. And our air is cleaner BECAUSE we put legal requirements in place through the Clean Air Act. But cleaner does not mean clean and safer does not mean safe.

As to your nuclear comments: It's not a matter of whether or not I find it "scary" (and by saying it that way you're trying to indicate that my position is one based in fear not reality, by the by), it's rather or not it is wise.

I've got another idea. Let me start over, addressing my point about the Market commentary of this post from a different angle.

Since my comment is about personal responsibility and how that plays in to a Market system, let's forget about cars for the moment, and petrochemicals, too.

Let's look at my preferred mode of transport, the Bicycle.

Suppose I go to Walmart to buy a bicycle. Let's further suppose that I am a moral person concerned about personal responsibility.

I get to Walmart and find a bike for $75! Whattadeal!

But wait, why is the price so low? Well, it turns out the bicycle was built in the Phillipines using forced child labor. Now, I could buy the bike for that cheap price, there would be nothing illegal about it. But the price is artificially low. It cost more than $75. It cost a percentage of those children's lives and happiness.

Being a moral person and wanting to pay all my bills, I decide not to buy at Walmart. I go instead to a bike store.

I find another bike for $200. Built by adults very much in need of the jobs in Mexico. Additionally, they were paid a fair wage (which is not always the case). So, the cost is legitimate in that regards.

However, I find out that, because of Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the bike company sued the Mexican village where it was built to get them to allow the company to vent their petroleum (from the tires) waste into the stream outside. Well! That money-saving device (on my end) COST the Mexican village their clean water!

But I'm a responsible person. I don't want a cheap bike paid for by someone else. So I look at another bicycle.

And I find one that was built in my state, by fairly paid union labor, under a system that did not allow them to vent their waste byproducts in to the stream. THAT bike cost $300.

And I bought it. Why would I buy the more expensive bicycle? Because that is what the bike costs. Not the $200 + a polluted stream. Not the $75 + child labor.

Does this help?

I feel like I'm doing a poor job of presenting my case and I'm really trying to show how what YOU and I both believe (in personal responsibility) should affect us in the real world.

And to get to the point of the original post, we need gov't to regulate stuff like this because most people are NOT going to do the research to do the right thing.

It's JUST LIKE having laws that preclude me from dumping my garbage in the neighbor's yard. We all want to be responsible. I'm just talking about looking at the bigger picture of what it means to be responsible.

What I'm doing is presenting a problem. I'm not advocating the other side (personal auto as a solution), yet you want ME to find the benefits of YOUR solution? I'm telling you I don't know of enough benefits - it's your system, you defend it. Or investigate it further or join with me in seeking alternative solutions. ... ...Am I wrong here, in feeling your request is a bit upside down?-Dan

Yes. You want to dramatically change the status quo, which apparently most folks think works okay, if imperfectly. If you want change, YOU need to justify it, and that means showing people like me BOTH sides of the balance sheet. You are not really adovcating adjustments to the existing system, you are advocating a 'new' system, which may cause as many problems as it 'fixes' but you've not examined that angle at all. You are clearly not simply pointing out problems and suggesting repairs. You are an advocate, and it's not that I think that's bad, but as an advocate, I believe you are underprepared. As for your bicycle story, there are many problems with it, not the least of which is that the $300.00 bike is not the same bike as the $75.00 bike,so it's a flawed comparison. I mainly am interested in what happens to that kid in the boondocks in the Phillipines when you get everyone to not buy the bike? Is he better off then? I don't think there is an easy answer to that question, but you seem to. I'm also not sure if it helps if I can't afford a $300.00 bike, so I don't buy one at all. Is that good for the Mexican village? Also, you seem to think cleaning up Mexico is our responsibility. Did you feel the same way about Iraq before we went in? Again, I said earlier I think what we do about China, India, and southeast Asia regarding the environment is far more important than whether or not I drive a car, and I think what we do about Mexico and the P.I. among others, regarding labor practices is far more important than pricing items artificially high here (what you call 'real' pricing). Even more importantly is, why aren't Indians, Mexicans and Filipinos doing more about these issues? You'd have a much greater net effect starting a union movement in the Phillipines, than trying to convince Wal-mart to raise prices on their bicycles.

Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear your thoughts on the parable of the talents.

My take on the parable of the talents is the same as Ched Myers, here:

http://www.theotherside.org/archive/may-jun99/myers2.html

Our take is that the church tends to interpret the story upside down; To believe that God is endorsing usury (which God condemns elsewhere in the bible), ruthless business practices and the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, all by the blessing of a hard-hearted God/master.

Instead, it makes more sense in context of the Bible teachings on economics to interpret the story as a condemnation of ruthlessness, not an endorsement. I don't see it having anything to do with capitalism, except by way of condemnation.

Them's my thoughts on that.

On my bike example:
You've misinterpreted my explanation. Why don't we assume that the bikes are all roughly the same-type bike? And the cost differences reflect the differences in environmental and labor approaches? Also, a price is NOT artificially high if it reflects the real cost and not having pushed off costs to someone else. That is True Cost.

This is one place where our dialog seems to breaking down. It doesn't seem to me that you're wanting to acknowledge when a cost has been passed off to someone else to lower your cost.

But all that aside, I still don't hear you responding to my central point that this is a matter of personal responsibility. Tell me philosophically: Should we be personally responsible for cleaning up and paying for our own messes? Yes or no?

Or, how about if I back up and take it slower?

Do we agree that it is a good thing to not throw garbage in my neighbor's yard? That, indeed, it is a valid point to have a law to that end?

I'm pretty sure your answer to that is, Yes, that is a good thing and a good law. Which is why it puzzles me that we can't move beyond that (ie, dumping "his" air pollution in "her" air is a similar thing, and should have similar personal accountability).

I think why this seems weird is that we're just not used to looking at life in this way. Thoughts?

After pondering it some more, I've boiled my questions on our petrochemical society down to these two - the first of which I'm pretty sure I know the answer:

1. Do we have a moral, societal and logical obligation to clean up after ourselves and pay for any messes we make?

2. If the answer is yes, then why is it different for our transportation/industrial sectors than others?

Yeah, it's tough when you get a question for which the only answers make you look either shallow, unethical or immoral.

Come on! No one's willing to answer a coupla questions?

Try this:

http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=3079

It's pretty much the traditional reading of the parable of the talents, with a couple of particularly good points. Note especially the parallel parable from Luke. I think, against that background, it's pretty clear the parable is about working hard in the service of the lord (not in worldly things, although I think that ends up also happening), and that God gives to us as we are able, but we must tend to it seriously. The fact that the object in the parable is a slaveholder, and capitalist, and that the parable mentions earning interest (not necessairly Usury as you mentioned) doesn't mean an endorsement, but it is hardly condemning them either. Ultimately, the call is to be moral in whatever system we are in. Capitalism just has the advantage of being harder to control centrally (and operate as a tool for oppression vs. other systems), as it is naturally a decentralized economic system.

The link you gave was interesting and very clever, but I felt it was carefully crafted to fit the reading to a worldly ideology rather than the other way around.

As for the pollution issue, we have collectively decided to pollute some, trying to manage it as best we can (here anyway) and taking some benefit with some cost. If you have a better solution, all you need do is convince enough people to change. So far, I am unimpressed. And I should be an easy sell, I love bikes, used to ride quite a bit, and even built a few. I also don't think your 'mess' analogy fits at all.

"You've misinterpreted my explanation. Why don't we assume that the bikes are all roughly the same-type bike? And the cost differences reflect the differences in environmental and labor approaches? Also, a price is NOT artificially high if it reflects the real cost and not having pushed off costs to someone else. That is True Cost."

But you gave a real life example- the bike YOU bought. And I know bikes well enough to know that the parts on a $75 bike aren't the same as the ones on a $300 bike. Can you remind me what the "pushed off" costs are? You keep repeating that line, and I still don't get you, unless you don't believe that things shouldn't have different costs in different places.

Thank you very much for giving me a well-considered answer. I appreciate it.

Disagree with it, but appreciate it.

At this point, I don't know that there's a great deal to benefit in rehashing points. If I've not explained myself well enough to be understood, then it is my own undoing and I apologize. If we understand and disagree, well, so be it.

I will give a few hopefully short responses.

RE: The interest/usury, Myers points out that there was no legitimate way to double your money, as the "good" servants do. Myers points out that the people listening to Jesus would recognize such as their oppressors - those "who add land to land" as Isaiah says.

Additionally, I don't know of a clear difference between "usury" and "interest," other than "usury" is what the Bible condemns and "interest" is what we do.

I guess my point is that it is easy for us to defend the status quo, or "our" status quo, and fit the bible's teachings around it. Easy, but not always accurate. With that in mind, keep a critical eye open to our society and what the Bible teaches.

One of my big suprises from growing up in a traditional Southern Baptist church to reading the Bible as an adult is that the "big sins" I was taught growing up (cussing, smoking, sex, drinking) are not or only marginally addressed in the Bible, whereas what the Bible - and Jesus especially - deals with are the sins of pride, consumerism, oppression of the poor and by the rich and powerful, the hypocrisy of the religious.

I'd suggest THESE ought to be given close consideration as we seek to seriously follow God's teachings.

Thanks again for responding.

One final question, just so I'm clear: Your answer to "why is it our personal and moral responsibility to clean up after ourselves, except when it comes to auto/industrial realms?" is:

"Because we've collectively decided to allow a little pollution"?

I guess so. Okay. Thanks!

"Additionally, I don't know of a clear difference between "usury" and "interest," other than "usury" is what the Bible condemns and "interest" is what we do."

Traditionally (even in biblical times) interest of around 10-12% was considered the maximum reasonable interest rate, anything higher was generally considered unfair- usury. Usury is NOT synonomous with charging interest. Lending money at a reasonable interest rate is not only moral, it would be immoral not to, IMHO. The interest provides incentive to pay off the debt in a timely manner; if no interest is charged, there is a great temptation to put it off, to not work harder to make sure you cen pay off your debts- dangling temptation in front of people is sinful, don't you agree? It's been fun, and I think we've agreed to disagree on the rest. Peace