Can you imagine if the entire world united against usury?

It should be of particular interest to you to know that the concept of interest arose prior to the use of money. It historically arose during the barter stages of markets, not the monetary stages. There is even evidence, sparse as it may be, that there was interest charged on bartered goods as early as the mid-Neolithic period. Obviously there is more to interest than simply a case of monetary disposition. Without interest there are a number of problems that are created within the market and there must be some sort of replacement for that interest. The problem of economic calculation will quickly arise without the presence of natural interest. Now, the problems arise when central planning and central banking manipulate interest rates to achieve both a political and social end, one that is not necessarily in the best interest of the People of this country. Additionally, in a free market economy, it is the market that determines the natural rate of interest, not the banks, not the government.

Please read the thread entitled: The Socialistic Interest Free Economy:

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/77618

http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com

“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”-Adams

The time value of money exists because, all other things being equal, people prefer to have their needs met now to having them met a year from now. It is human nature. For example, all other things being equal, you would rather have a new car today than the same new car next year. That preference is the time value of money. If you loan someone the cost of the new car, you will need to postpone your enjoyment of the new car. For you to be wiling to do that, you need to be compensated. That is interest.

Inflation also adds to the interest rate, but for a different reason.

Or a gov't mandated and taxpayer funded safety net when banks fail.

that was one of the first movies that woke me up three years ago. Have you heard of JOHN PERKINS: Well, what we've done -- we use many techniques, but probably the most common is that we'll go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet, like oil, and we'll arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters, but almost all of the money goes to the U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in that country: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they're huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won't get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hit men, to this country and say, “Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can't repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote or send troops in support of ours to some place in the World such as Iraq.” And in that way, we've managed to build a World empire with very few people actually knowing that we've done this. If you’ve seen George Clooney’s movie Syriana, and Hotel Rwanda and Good night and Good luck, you’ll get the picture John Perkins is describing.