Discussion Subject:

Debt vs. Equity part II

The matter of charging interest in scripture. And recourse. We look at the Pilgrims and 400 years later in America. We also look at the creation of the Federal Reserve and what was good or bad about it.

  • What does the Bible have to say about charging interest to the poor? Profiting from the poor? And what does the scripture say about charging interest to “fellow Israelites”? Why? How is this in conflict with the very essence of our depersonalized financial system today? With fractional reserve “recourse lending” at “interest”? The “yield curve” of the debt market? And the lack of moral accountability behind “shareholder’s interests” and the relentless pursuit of “earnings per share” today?
  • How does modern day bankruptcy differ from the biblical Shmita idea of forgiveness of debt? The Jubilee?
  • We examine the “debt” and “equity” the Pilgrims took on 400 years ago with John Pierce and the London investors group known as the “Merchant Adventurers”. They, in turn, had made a land deal with the Virginia Company, having renegotiated it via the “Pierce Patent” circa 1621. 10 years later, the Pilgrims were able to settle their obligations through the “Bradford Patent”. We look at the potential Biblical parallel of Israel being enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. Toward the end it got so bad, Pharaoh required God’s people to “build bricks without straw”. Are we in a similar situation today with our utter dependency on the Fed and our financial markets?
  • We look at the creation of the Federal Reserve via the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. It is often said, the Fed is neither owned by the Federal government, nor is actually required to carry any “reserves” by statute (as one traditionally thinks of reserves; gold for instance).

Good book on this is: The Creature from Jekyll Island; A Second Look at the Federal Reserve