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2 unusual facts about usury


Usury

In The Divine Comedy Dante places the usurers in the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell.

'Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium That Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth', Margrit Kennedy, with Declan Kennedy: Illustrations by Helmut Creutz; New and Expanded Edition, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, USA and Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, 1995.


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Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis

In Canto XLV of Ezra Pound's The Cantos, Pound denounces usury and tells what usury contradicts and what can be accomplished without it by juxtaposing historical figures of the humanist movement and the Renaissance: "Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis, came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit."

History of Sioux Falls, South Dakota

In 1981, Citibank transferred its credit card operations from New York to Sioux Falls to take advantage of recently relaxed state usury laws.

Joshua Falk

Kontres 'al Diney Ribbis, a discourse on the laws relating to the prohibition of usury, followed by some "takkanot" (ordinances by the Rabbis), Sulzbach, 1692;

Lydia Lipkowska

In 1912, Lipkowska charged New York gangster Sam Schepps with usury over his refusal to return two diamonds worth $80,000 that she'd pawned to him.

Put–call parity

In the 19th century, financier Russell Sage used put-call parity to create synthetic loans, which had higher interest rates than the usury laws of the time would have normally allowed.

Smiley v. Citibank

In 1980, Citibank took advantage of that decision and moved its money-losing credit-card operations to South Dakota, after persuading that state's legislature and governor to repeal its anti-usury law.


see also