By Max Musson:
When the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby launched his campaign to ‘compete’ usurious payday loans company Wonga out of business, it is possible that he had the very best of intentions, however, within less than a day, this foolish man has been left looking rather red faced.
Having prominently criticised Wonga for the extortionate charges they make on their short-term loans, the Archbishop was informed following a Financial Times investigation that the Church of England Pension Fund is indirectly invested in Wonga and he has now called for the Assets Committee of the Church Commissioners to investigate how this has occurred and to review the holding, which is through a pooled investment vehicle.
The most worrying aspect of this whole affair for practicing Christians and the British public in general, is not just that a man who at one time served on the parliamentary Banking Standards Commission appears to demonstrate such a lack of due diligence with regard to the organization he is supposed to be running that he had to have something like this pointed out to him by someone else, but that this is not the first time that something Justin Welby ought have been aware of has had to be embarrassingly pointed out to him.
According to the Daily Telegraph website, in November 2012, shortly after his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby was informed by the Telegraph that the father he had always known as Gavin Bramhal Welby, born on November 28 1914, was in fact Bernard Gavin Weiler, born on November 28 1910, and further more, his father was Jewish.
It seems incredible, but apparently, we are to believe that Justin Welby was so lacking in curiousity during his younger years that right up until middle age, he, one of the most senior clerics in the Church of England, had never before enquired into his family background and had remained completely ignorant of his father’s Jewish ancestry!
One wonders whether Justin Welby ever had a conversation with is father and enquired about details of his father’s birth, his up-bringing and the rest of his early life? One wonders why Justin Welby had as a child, never thought to explore his family tree, nor attempt to establish the names and other basic details of even his grandparents?
Perhaps he had been content to believe that his father had been delivered by a stork, or perhaps he is just a very naïve and timid man whose enquiries are easily deflected and brushed aside and who is fearful of asking awkward questions when dealing with more street-wise and business savvy individuals.
So what are we to make of the Archbishop’s campaign to confront payday loans companies like Wonga and his attempt to ‘compete’ them out of business?
Wonga is an online, short-term money-lender backed by some of the world’s most prominent venture capitalists, including Accel Partners, the US venture capital firm that the Church of England’s Pension Fund is at least partly invested in. Launched in 2007, Wonga, a multi-million pound start-up is alleged to be one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. Its £73 million 2010 revenues were up 300 per cent on the year before. Profit in 2010 was £14 million and last year, it won the Sunday Times TechTrack100 award.
The ethical issue regarding Wonga is that they levy high charges upon their customers, equivalent to an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of over 5,000% per annum and this puts them clearly into the category of ‘usurers’ as far as the Church of England is concerned.
Usurers are money lenders who charge extortionate interest rates, and the market that Wonga cater for has been created by the ‘credit crunch’ and the general disinclination of banks to make fresh credit freely available, particularly to people who are in financial difficulties.
Typically their potential customer is someone without a credit card, or someone who has ‘maxed-out’ on their credit cards and who needs a short term loan to tide them over until payday.
Such people have a choice to either extend their overdraft without the agreement of their bank and suffer unauthorised overdraft charges or turn to loan-sharks and companies like Wonga who make available ‘payday’ loans at extortionate interest rates.
Justin Welby hopes the Church of England can assist credit unions as a means of providing competition for the likes of Wonga, but what he fails to realise is that one must have built up some form of savings relationship with a credit union before one can obtain a loan and the potential customers of a company like Wonga are not the sort of people who will have savings. The Archbishop’s campaign is therefore unlikely to be effective.
The Archbishop said that it is his dream to ‘compete’ Wonga out of existence, and he has even met its boss Errol Damelin to warn him. Interestingly, just like Welby’s father, Errol Damelin is Jewish and has a reputation as a very business savvy individual, so let’s hope the Archbishop was not too far out of his depth.
The Archbishop apparently told Total Politics magazine, “I’ve met the head of Wonga and we had a very good conversation and I said to him quite bluntly ‘we’re not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we’re trying to compete you out of existence’,
“He’s a businessman, he took that well.”
I imagine Errol Damelin must have been struggling to fight back tears of laughter in the face of the Archbishop’s feeble threat and I am reminded of when Dennis Healey once described a similar attack by Sir Geoffrey Howe, as “like being savaged by a dead sheep!”
By Max Musson © 2013
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Charles Cloak
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An informative article, however, I must take issue with the definition of usury given.
According to Hilaire Belloc:
“Usury is the taking of any interest whatsoever upon an unproductive loan” p.214 of Economics for Helen, which is available here:
https://203.200.22.249:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/251/1/Economics_for_Helen.pdf
Charging any rate of interest, even 5,000%, is legitimate if it is used to create extra wealth. Of course, Belloc was a little less insightful as to the origins of usury, merely stating it was the due to the de-personalisation of banking in the middle / end of the 17th century.
Interestingly enough I recently came across a song dated 1601 – 1640? that talked of usurers. Significantly this date puts it before the civil war.
Me thought I saw an Usurer old,
walke in his Fox-furd gowne,
Whose wealth and eminence controld
the most men in the Towne:
His wealth he by extortion got,
and rose by others fall,
He had what his hands earned not,
but poore men pay for all.
https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/30223/xml
Max Musson
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The precise definition of usury seems to vary depending upon the authority sought. For example, the Concise Oxford Dictionary gives the definition: “the act or practice of lending money at interest, especially at an exorbitant rate”.
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In the early Christian era, lending money at interest, irrespective of the interest rate charged, was in common with Islamic traditions, regarded as a sin. Modern Western practice however has tended to take a more liberal view and condemn only money lending at exorbitant interest rates.
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There can be no doubt that interest rates of over 5,000% p.a. are exorbitant, and there can be no doubt that by definition, payday loans fail the test suggested by Hilaire Belloc and should be regarded as usury, i.e. an immoral form of money lending.
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What is so profoundly ironic here is that while Judeophiles have gone to great lengths in recent times in order to rehabilitate the reputation of Jews in business and to deny the validity of the ‘usurious Jewish moneylender’ stereotype, the proprietors of Wonga can be found today, by their actions, appearing to breath new life into that old stereotype.
Anglo-Australian Alliance
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Well, it seems Charles beat me to it (nice work; good comment). Nevertheless, here is a copy of a post made 29 weeks ago on a similar topic:
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As a Distributist I would legislate against usury, The main issue here is that the “government” has given Wonga carte blance permission to apply its illicit wares. It is increasingly evident that the polity of the West generally, and the U.K, in particular, is plutocracy and not democracy.
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Contrary to the popular interpretation of usury, it is not interest on a loan of capital –be that interest a fair and reasonable 1%, or an immoral and outrageous 99%.
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Put simply, usury is profit on an UNPRODUCTIVE loan.
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Example:
If a man lends another man £100,000 for the initiative of purchasing a boat to import goods that will make the importer a handsome profit, then asks for and receives, say, 10% profit on his loan, then that IS NOT USURY. The lender has lent the money in good will for a PRODUCTIVE loan. It is quite right for the lender to take a share in the handsome profits made by his lending of the money.
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However, if a shifty-eyed money-lender lends a desperate man £1,000 so he can feed, clothe, and nurture his family, then THAT IS USURY because the money was lent as an UNPRODUCTIVE loan.
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Note: my interpretation of usury comes from my reading of Hilaire Belloc’s “Economics for Helen”, 1924: https://203.200.22.249:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/251/1/Economics_for_Helen.pdf
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Further Reading:
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“What is Distributism?”: https://www.distributist.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/distributism-defined.html
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“Is Usury Still a Sin?”: https://distributistreview.com/mag/2012/01/is-usury-still-a-sin/
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“Usury: A Short History of Banking”: by The Third Position: https://www.heretical.com/miscellx/usury.html
Max Musson
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Thank you A³, a very informative reply.
Thomas a'Becket
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The following is an extract taken from the 1688 (1689) Bill of Rights.
And I doe declare That noe Forreigne Prince Person Prelate, State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authoritie Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall within this Realme Soe helpe me God.
And the governments interpretation of the Bill can be found on their own website
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction
The act was conceived to prevent persons of foreign origin from becoming Archbishop and having power over any aspect of our nation. And here we are with both the Realm and Government ignoring the Act. That surely is an act of treason in itself. The fact that this person has become Archbishop is deplorable and the Government and Realm should hang their heads in shame.
Franks
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It appears that Damelin is another immigrant who has been allowed into the U.K. as part of the enrichment programme. Did he have any sponsors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Damelin
Will Mossop
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Two elements worthy of note in the Magna Carta
“If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond.
And if anyone die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than Jews.”
Since both Welby/Weiler and Damelin are of Jewish descent perhaps those affected by the above should claim defence under Magna Carta. Though somehow I guess such a defence wouldn’t be allowed.
nostradamus
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It is a great shame that the CoE do not put some of their money into the run down Churches and promote Christianity rather than leave it to local people to raise small amounts. It seems as if many Churches in this Country are short of Vicars with many having to attend to two church congregations or more.
rarecockney
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I, think not the sharpest tool in the Box, comes to Mind. This chap is unbelievable condeming wonga yet, the church has business interests in Wonga ! Couldn’t make it up
S.ducain
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Of course Welby / Weiler knows full well about his Jewish ancestry, just like Blair and
Cameron know full well about theirs. We’ve heard this nonsense so many times from
part-Jews like Madeleine Albright the US Attourny General who claimed she only
‘ discovered ‘ that she was Jewish when she was in her 60s. It is not a crime being
Jewish or part Jewish but when they hide this fact as all of them do, it does tend to get
people thinking ” conspiracy ”.