ChatGPT: The quote you're thinking of is often attributed to Henry David Thoreau, who said:
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
This means that many people focus on addressing the surface-level symptoms of a problem (the branches) rather than tackling the underlying cause (the root). Thoreau’s point is that true change or resolution comes only when we address the core issues rather than just the visible effects.
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I am convinced that USURY is the ROOT of ALL EVIL.
USURY is the mechanism of our enslavement.
USURY is why we are TAX SLAVES
USURY is why we are DEBT SLAVES
USURY is the mechanism by which “the wealth” is “transferred” from the working poor, and into the hands of “the rich” or “the wealthy”
“All wealth is derived from labor”
~ Adam Smith, paraphrased
ChatGPT: The quote you're referencing is close to Adam Smith’s ideas in The Wealth of Nations, though it may not be a direct quote. Smith argued that labor is a primary source of value, stating:
"Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things."
This means that labor is foundational to creating wealth, as it’s through human work that resources are transformed into valuable goods and services. Smith emphasized that the value of any commodity largely depends on the amount of labor invested in producing it.
Our entire money system is built on USURY.
So let me give you my own two personal definitions of USURY…
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Usury is the charging of money, for the use of money.
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Usury is the charging of any interest at all.
And until USURY is addressed, we will never be “free”
The Federal Reserve Note is in the final stages of life,
And the reason it failed, is the same reason EVERY usury scheme fails
Trump is just one man.
We don’t have much time to enact the monetary reforms we should make
I nominate Ron Paul for the job
Making the wrong investments always ruins your life...but it is not the fault of the investment, or of the mechanisms that allow investments. I wouldn't have been able to afford a house or automobiles if I couldn't have spread the debt over time. The problems you cite are the problems of government lying to the people and enmeshing them in bad investments. If someone pushes bad literature on you, should we banish printing presses? That seems to be your logic.
The way most people pay their loans is a bad investment. If you total the entire amount you paid for your house and vehicles with interest you’ll have paid double what it is worth. Is that your logic? Didn’t I just discuss the government preying on students for loans? Also, there was an inference to freddie and fannie mae. Also, buying a house or car are not really investments. Who taught you that? They are both depreciating assets that actually require tremendous cost to keep at base level value. The government taught you that owning a house was an investment. It’s kinda a lie. Your analogy about printing presses really falls flat here. Lastly, I feel I was pretty specific in what loans I was talking about. You are trying to apply my words to a broad generalization. I don’t think the hyperbole was necessary.
The way that most people pay their loans is often as much as they can do. That's not the way I pay my loans, but I am lucky enough to have a choice in the matter due to my income level. I worked numbers for a living, so you don't need to explain compound interest to me.
You have a stunted idea of what an "investment" is. An automobile provides mobility, to enable employment, commercial application, or home-related logistics, all of which would be far more expensive than to hire transportation. Similarly for a house, that spares you from rent, provides shelter, and amenities of life. According to you, we should never purchase anything on time but only obtain things by rent? It is to avoid rent that we tolerate time payment. I don't know who is teaching you anything, but it does not seem to be life. And, by the way, "the government" didn't teach me anything about automobiles or houses.
The bottom line remains that taking out a loan for whatever purpose is a free act between free individuals, to the mutual benefit of both parties. If you want to avoid taking out a loan in your life, have at it. No one is interfering. But I do object to your desire to interfere in how I live my financial life, since you offer no plausible alternatives. You seem to want a world of rentals---with all their restrictions on use---and that would make the WEF happy as clams: no one would own anything, and we would all be happy.
Again you are taking my comments and applying to broad generalizations. Of course you’d come up with terrible assumptions. And they are quite assumptive! Maybe you should refer to the first comment and realize you were not in the equation at all. You seem to insist on inserting yourself into my opinion while misapplying to other scenarios. I will redirect you back to predatory student loans. It is a dreadful scam on the government’s part in my opinion.
Of course they are. But that is because of government policy, not of the existence of "usury." It is also because of the ignorance and folly of the students, but where are we supposed to write laws against that? Caveat emptor.