Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 2122895)

Sure, but it would work exactly the same way in economic terms if there were a large class of sadists who enjoyed seeing images of whip-scarred serfs and gloating over them, and would pay more for that brand of coffee.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh (Post 2122340)

Greetings, all!

For cultural (rather than religious) reasons, a setting includes two major approaches to banking. Let's call them, for a lack of a better word, 'Usury-OK' and 'Usury-NO', with the latter resembling the real-world Islamic Banking (but actually has nothing to do with Islam, since the setting has totally different cultures and religions). In some regions, people are heavily inclined towards one approach or the other, and in some there may even be legal reasons why one or the other maintains little or no presence; in others, they coexist to cater to people with different priorities, fears, concerns etc. (Also, a side note: IRL Islamic Banking seems to still be in its infancy, barely a few decades old, while the setting in question is TL9ish and had its usury-no equivalent for a handful of TLs, letting it become more developed / bugs removed / etc.)

Now, of course all financial matters are very complex in real life, and usually simplified in games. Me reading a bunch of articles and discussions (which I did) is not enough to understand the intricacies of Islamic Banking IRL, and real-world understanding is recommended when trying to produce a playable simplification of a real thing.

So my question is to those who are 'at home' with real-world intricacies of banking, economics, accounting, finance etc.: what should be the game effects of choosing the latter approach over the former? What should be the game-mechanical differences in terms of financing and payment as depicted on SS2:27?

Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 2122396)

No one who is lending money for commercial reasons, rather than within a family, to a friend, or as an act of charity, would accept getting the same money back a year later. "I'll pay you now" is not equivalent to "I'll pay you a year from now" in value—nor to "I'll pay you now, but you have to agree not to spend the money till a year from now." The latter gives you fewer options, and the ones you don't get include the most urgent ones.

So if you do prohibit lending X amount of money and getting back X+x, one of three things will happen: Either you get workarounds, or you have desperate borrowers going to black market lenders (who will charge higher interest rates and/or use brutal enforcement methods), or you simply have no ability to borrow money, no matter how desperate your need. In GURPS terms, the first two rely primarily on Law and Streetwise, respectively. (Whereas if interest is legal, you just need to make a Finance roll.)

One of the common workarounds, though, is the understanding that you are lending money to a productive enterprise—in effect, sharecropping. Your funds pay for assets that increase the output, and thus you're entitled to share in the output you've helped produce. That doesn't do anything for consumer loans, including purchase of consumer durables such as cars, houses, or yachts, but it would seem to apply, at least potentially, to spaceships.

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2122922)

Well, this assumes you think Sharia banking is more than just semantic games. Assuming it is, however, what this amounts to is "loans, as described on SS2:27, do not exist".