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« Tuesday « March 27, 2007
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A Fresh Take on Islamic Finance
(BusinessWeek.com)
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The basic principle behind Islamic banking -- which is based on Shariah, or Koranic law -- is that people shouldn't be charged interest on loans or be paid interest on investments.Wow! This is eye-opening and incredibly fascinating to me: a banking system that doesn't charge interest. So, one from a capitalist system has to ask the obvious question: how, then, do banks make money? I'm ignorant here, but perhaps this line in the article gives a clue: "Islamic credit cards that have users essentially borrowing money from themselves." Borrow from yourself. Now, when you think about a, well, regular (i.e.Western/capitalist) credit card, isn't that how it should work? You buy something you can't afford with cash today, and you pay it off over time. But, of course, in the West, what happens is that the middlemen -- greedy banks -- hit you with loan-shark interest rates so high that it sometimes becomes impossible to pay off. In the Western system, the banks are nothing but mercenary, and yet all they're doing is holding other people's money. I mean, really, what other value does a Western bank add to anything? Whatever it is, it's surely not equal to what they extract from every transaction; they're bloodsuckers. More digging on this novel (to me) banking topic will be required.
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