>If you look back many hundred years, the Church had outlawed usury (charging interest on loans) Correction: Usury was the charging of interest on an unproduct

>If you look back many hundred years, the Church had outlawed usury (charging interest on loans) Correction: Usury was the charging of interest on an unproductive loan. If the principle of the loan was meant to buy food for a family, then the lender could not charge interest. If the principle was meant to start a business then the charging of interest was not usury. The big problem was that, for a long time, theologians followed Aristotle on the question if money, itself, was "fruitful" or not. Aristotle said that it wasn't. In the later Middle Ages, theologians made a distinction between money and the uses of money. That distinction led to the conclusion I gave in the previous paragraph. Okay, I'm nitpicking, but this medieval usury issue is a pet peeve of mine.