REPORT #583 January 2003
NEW LAW CONTEMPLATED FOR BELIZE MAKING COMPOUND INTEREST A CRIMINAL OFFENSE WITH A MANDATORY DEATH SENTENCE!


Produced by the Belize Development Trust

Should Belize make compound interest a criminal offense? That is the question! Compound interest found it's way into banking and lending agencies and institutions from the Mafia loan sharks, who charged daily and weekly vigorish. Or perpetual debt, with the alternative of getting your legs broken.

Compound Interest has been blamed in in this writers opinion quite rightly, as perpetual enslavement of a new colonial method of economically controlling the new free ex-colonies of the world.

Arab banks do not allow interest on loans. It is against their law. Insteady they calculate what we in the West would call simple interest and add it on to a loan as a flat fee. There is no escalation of the balance, or charge on principal plus mounting interest, as done in compound interest charges. Western Credit Unions with their simple interest of 12% are the closest thing to Arab Banking law, but even Credit Union 12% interest is considered excessive by Arab banks. No loan should ever pay a total of more than 10% which would include any fees, commissions and any other charges including simple interest.

If the perpetuators of compound interest are criminals? No better than loan sharks, or white collar crime entrepreneurs. What could the third world countries do about it?

Well the debate in Belize is about making it against the law, a criminal act, for any person, institution, bank or other; to loan money at compound interest, to any Belizean, or Belizean institution, the government, or anyone of Belizean extraction. This would include both foreign lenders and local. In the case of institutions, stockholders, Boards of Directors and Chief Officers of lenders, would be found guilty of a criminal act and sentence to death.

Do you think this would work to free Belize from perpetual debt to foreign lenders? A new form of colonialism and empire building?

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