Globetrotter your understanding of riba is exactly how it was introduced into Europe n the 16th century.
The catholic church was very clear in its denouncement of it and it was only practiced by the jews.
Interestingly the jews consider it a terrible crime to lend to another jew with interest..
after the reformation took place and the church lost its power over most of europe, people wanted to break the jewish monopoly and inter the money lending business, this was the excuse they gave to sell it to the masses..
that usury is excessive interest on capital lent, and not on the idea of interest in the first place..
This is not a recent event, the introduction of interest based banking it is very old.
It goes back to babylon and it has appeared throughout the world on many occasions but it is not science it is simply an instrument.
You among others believe that it is a scientific fact, and that it is natural when it is only an instrument that is common today because of circumstance only.
You say this this is science, when everyone knows that economics is not a science , and bareento asks me about why interest rates are linked to exchange rates.
You are both describing our current system , you are describing its principles in barentoos case the floating currency exchange system that is a very recent manifestation and only came about after 1974 when nixon finally killed of the bretton woods system and de-coupled the dollar from gold reserves and any backing whats so ever.
When other currencies followed , we had a series of fiat currencies mostly from the developed world that were "floating" and were not backed by anything at all.
This is when you started to use models to price the exchange rates, to discover their true values on a daily, sometimes hourly and minutley basis.
The interest rate parity is only one of them, the others include the rate of inflation for each country, the balance of payments for every country, the trade balance if there is a trade deficit or a surplus and even stability of the governments.
This only applies to floated currencies not to all currencies as government policy makes up a more important part of the equation along with some of the above models..
As i said this became the current state of affairs after nixons decision and was never a standard or even a universal thing.
Both you and globe are talking of the current system and its workings and accuse other who question them of ignorance about economics.
What you should understand is that i do not mistaken the workings of the current system, ive used it in the past for my own advantage, i question the entire system.
I question its value and necessity and i advocate replacing it completely.
The current financial system should be seen a device an instrument, not a part of nature.
I question the use of this device, why not modify it.
Or even replace it with another device that does the same thing but without the bad effects.
You are both talking about for example the inner workings of a steam engine for pulling our train, when i have no interest in a coal fired steam engine, i want a diesel engine, maybe one with electric transmission so we can get a hybrid propulsion system.
You accept the coal fired steam engine (interest, and fractional reserve banking) and cannot think outside the box, and accuse those who question the steam engine as ignorant, while ignoring the disadvantages of your current system..
for the coal fired steam engine the cons are endless, with the long time for startup, the bulky fuel, the low range, and ofcourse the dirt and heat and the dangers of working it..
When the other systems promise and deliver cleaner, safer, more powerfull and longer range propulsion systems.
Ok i digress, i have taken the analogy too far but let us go on to the disadvantages of interest bases banking system and currency.
Disadvantages:
1.
Encourages too much competition.
When a bank creates money by providing you with, say, a $100,000 mortgage loan, it creates only the principal when it credits your account. However, it expects a return of some $200,000 over the next 20 years or so. The bank does not create the interest; it requires you to earn this second $100,000 through your interactions with others. So, how does a loan, whose interest is never created get repaid? Essentially, to pay back interest on a loan, someone else’s principal must be used. In other words, not creating the money to pay interest is the device used to generate the scarcity necessary for a bank-debt monetary system to function. It forces people to compete with each other for money that was never created, and penalizes them with bankruptcy should they not succeed.
2.
The need for endless growth
In reality, we do not live in a world of zero growth in population, output, or money supply. The real process involves growth of all three. The monetary system just takes the first slice of that growth to pay for interest. In agrarian societies, one customarily sacrificed to the gods the first fruits of the harvest. Now, instead, we give the first fruits of our toils to the financial system. In real life, population, production, and money supply all grow at different rates from year to year. The monetary system acts like a treadmill, requiring continuous economic growth, even if the average real standard of living were to remain stagnant. In short, the interest rate determines the average rate of economic growth needed to remain at the same place. This supposed need for perpetual growth is another fact of life in our modern societies. This monetary system was created during a time in which nobody recognized any ecological or other constraints for indefinite and compulsory growth.
Also this created conditions that have allowed the money supply to outpace the growth of the real economy and the exponential growth of fiat currency and the global casino of the currency markets and derivates trading have led us to the situation today were 95% of the money supply has nothing to do with the real economy but is bieng gambled on these very financial markets.
3.
Concentration of Wealth
A third systematic effect of interest is its continual transfer of wealth from the vast majority to a small minority. The wealthiest receive an uninterrupted rent from whoever needs to borrow to obtain the medium of exchange. Interest by definition is a process that transfers money from people who don’t have enough of it (and therefore have to borrow it) to those who have more than they need (and who are therefore able lend it). Conclusion: The three main effects of interest (competition, the need for perpetual growth, and unrelenting wealth concentration) have been the hidden engines that have propelled us into and through the Industrial Revolution. Both the best and the worst of what the Modern Age has achieved can be directly and indirectly attributed to these hidden effects of interest — the apparently benign feature of our prevailing monetary system.
There are alternatives to our current system, history shows us examples of interest free banking and currencies,
apart from our islamic examples we have China, from the Han, to the Tang Dynasty to the Glorious Sung and Ming dynasties,
You have ancient Egypt that was the bulwark against interest and kept itself interest free for millenia and for that period it was one of the most productive periods of time in the world and a major exporter of food and manufactured goods..
As soon as it lost its Independence and was forced to use interest bearing greek style currency and allow the flocks of money lenders to come in,
it was no longer a food exporters..
Europe in the Middle ages especially germany was a good example, contrary to popular thought , the period between 1150 and 1450 300 years was a period
of high population growth, economic boom and the rise of cathederals in every little village.(like a burj al arab for every small german town)
considering that cathederals were a major investment, and took 20 years to build you can see the level of prosperity.
This was when the currency called Brakteaten was used, it was interest free and was subject to demurrage or negative rate of interest.
As soon as political changes occured and states on the peripheral like France, Burgandy, the Hapsburg empire started to gain power and influence over those states using brakteaeten, and it was replaced with the familiar gold and silver based interest bearing currencies popular elsewhere, the boom ended.
There was no major infrastructure project built in central europe since the end of brakteaten, till the end of the 30 years war in the mid 17th century
thats more than 200 years later.
infact all those lovely cathedrals are from the period before the introduction of interest bearing currency, and the establishment of moneylenders.
An interst free economy is possible, we can start with small steps, like rollingback the damage done to the world economy by Richard Nixon, and create a new Bretton woods world monetary system.
The chinese and russians have all proposed this, there will be no Floating like there is today, there will be no major currency specualtion as there will be a tax on these transactions(tobin Tax). The proposed world trading currency would be interest free and stable, and promote trade.
We may even go to John Maynard kenynes brilliant idea on this subject..
There are many ways of doing this, and many angles of attacking this problem.
I just, ask you to have an open mind..
I will mention some ideas on implementing this..
and i admit it is not my idea, very little of this is my idea, there is a world wide movement for this change and they are motivated by moral and logical consideration not only religous, and this movement is old, it is as old as Marxsim it just never got much media coverage.
and this is led by westerners as well as those from east asia and india..
I am inspired by Proudhon as well as Henry George and i was introduced to them by Silvio Gesell
His work the Natural Economic Order is a good read an i recomend it..
Proudhon and Henry George made me wasnt to look into non-european examples and this is where Ibn Khalduns muqadama comes in
there are allof of overlapping ideas, also from Nizam el Mulk .
The above contains excrepts and paraphrasing from Bernard Lietaer ...
http://www.lietaer.com/
and his book The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work and a Wiser World
SO u go from moaning about your loneliness to communism---waar waaye. 
