Show EDISON FORD PLANS ATTACK ON INTEREST abolition of rent no more plausible than abolition of pay on loans expert shows it Is no DO more unreasonable to pay par interest on a loan of 0 money than to pay rent on a house declares william T foster director of 0 the pollack foundation for economic research in exposing the fallacy of the attack on interest inhere st charges by henry ford and thomas A edison in their commodity money scheme to do away with the present financial system mr fosters argument Is reviewed in the present article which Is one of a series prepared by the american bankers association cia tion the ford edison commodity money plan Is regarded as a step toward the abolition of all interest charges mr foster says interest says the dearborn independent Is a tax that few ancient tyrants would have dared impose interest in actual modern practice is a contrivance whereby all production Is taxed by parasites and whereby money Is given a supremacy over men material and management which it cannot sustain renting money but is there really anything more terrible about paying tor for the use of money than about paying tor for the use of anything else suppose a farmer finds himself in need of a harvesting machine and without enough money to buy one in that case he can either borrow a machine of neighbor brown or borrow money and buy a machine the farmer would consider it right to pay in some way tor for the use of the tha machine why should he expect to borrow money which Is honored in the markets in payment for or the same sama machine without paying tor for the use 0 f the money now let us suppose that the farmer uses the machine so successfully that thai he saves a thousand dollars with that money he can buy a farm and he can let neighbor drown brown have the use of it neighbor brown naturally would expect to pay rent instead of buying the farm however however he could lend the thousand dollars to his neighbor in order that his neighbor might buy the farm in that case neighbor brown should eap exp expect ct to pay tor for the rent of 0 the money all this seems clear when the transactions are as simple as these it Is plain that there is just as great propriety in charging for the use ot of money moncy monc y as in charging for the use of things that money will buy loaned money dullas a school we may assume however that the farmer does not want to buy land and neighbor brown does not want to borrow money in that case the farmer deposits his thousand dollars dollar in a bank and the bank pays him interest tor for the use of his money but the bank can pay interest only it if it makes profitable use of his money now the bank finds that the city needs a high school building and has decided to borrow enough money to construct it in order to obtain the money the city has issued bonds bond each ot of which Is a promise to pay one thousand dollars at a specified date and interest in the meantime at a specified rate the bank buys one of 0 these bonds thus the farmer has had a part in providing the city with a school building and the farmer has bo just as much right to expect interest Into rost tor for the use ot of his bis money as though he bo had loaned the money directly or indirectly a to neighbor brown |