Jeremy Bentham Quotes

The Question to be considered is, Whether the Government have reason by a Law, to prohibit the taking more than 4 l. per cent Interest for Money lent, or to leave the Borrower and Lender to make their own Bargains.

When Interest is less, Trade is incourag'd, and the Merchant can be a Gainer; whereas, when it is great, the Usurer, or Money-owner takes all. The Dutch, with whom Interest is low, Trade cheaper, and under-sell us.

Stipulated interest beyond the legal rate, being against the law, cannot be recovered; they call that a usurious way of lending; the lender is in no case entitled to more than five in the hundred.[5%]

No person shall practice usury at a rate of more than one twelfth.

A great Want of Money in any Trading Country, occasions Interest to be at a very high Rate… it is impossible by any Laws to restrain Men from giving and receiving exorbitant Interest, where Money is suitably scarce: For he that wants Money will find out Ways

The trade of banks is the buying and selling of interest and exchange.

Wherefore when a man giveth out his money upon condition that be may not demand it back until a certain time to come, he certainly may take a compensation for this inconvenience which he admits against himself.

So that it cannot be denied, but the lowering of Interest may, and probably will keep some Money from coming abroad into Trade; whereas on the contrary, high Interest certainly brings it out.

God has permitted buying and selling and forbidden usury …. those who revert to usury are doomed to everlasting hellfire …

If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money, gets nearly as much interest from the former, as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other.

A word or two I must trouble you with, concerning compound interest; for compound interest is discountenanced by the law. I suppose, as a sort of usury. That, without an express stipulation, the law never gives it.

The invention of money opened a new field to human avarice by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest while the owner passes a life of idleness.

Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

In precisely the same way money is often hired, and the hire paid for the use of it is called Interest.

A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.

It may be said, let him take Money at Interest, and not buy at Time. But then Men must be found, that will lend; the Legislative must provide a Fund to borrow upon.

The business of a bank is to lend money; which amounts, nowadays, to lending credit.

If we think we're going to solve our economic problems by monetary policy alone, we are mistaken. History shows that we have to employ fiscal policy as well.

To make a Bill or Note bearing no Interest, and not payable till after a dozen or score of Years, a legal Tender … in Payment of Debts, is the highest of despotick and arbitrary Government

I avert, that high Interest will bring Money out from Hoards, Plate, etc. into Trade, when low interest will keep it back.

Moneys imployed at Interest in this Nation, are not near the Tenth part, disposed to Trading People, wherewith to manage their Trades; but are for the most part lent for the supplying of Luxury, and to support the Expence of Persons, who though great Owners of Lands, yet spend faster than their Lands bring in; and being loath to sell, choose rather to mortgage their Estates.

People paid their 3 percent a month interest without considering it excessive.

Moses (that wise Legislator) in his forbidding the Jews to lend money one to another, and permitting them to lend their money to Strangers; ordained that Law as much to a Political as a Religious intent; knowing that by the latter they should enrich their own Nation, and by the former no publick good could ensue; the consequences being only to impoverish one Jew to make another rich.

I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.