Great post David, particularly in regards to the Christian Right's political decline. But is the Christian Right's spiritual fervor also on decline? I'm not sure, and it's obviously much harder to quantify. Either way, this was very well put:

Count me among those who doubts the GOP will ever get around to really doing something about abortion, for example. Secular authority will give the church what it wants as long as it serves its interests. When the church pushes for more (in "speaking truth to power," as it should), it inevitably, sometimes violently, rediscovers that secular authority wants it on a leash.

I resent the implications about Mac 'n' Cheese, though.

This curious NYer wonders where the Ohio Restoration Project stands, closer to the Dominionist fringe or the mainstream Christian Right?

The fall of the Christian right as a political power seemed sealed after church-going conservative, even fundamentalist candidates started going after each other in Republican primaries as being "anti-family", "pro-pornography", "pro-gambling" or "secular humanist" if they deviated even 1% from the "Christian" line -- often related to amendments that were procedural rather than substantive. In Oklahoma, some Republicans who voted for increased aid to public education were skewered as "anti-family." The vote on public education should be fair game on the basis of public policy considerations, but the label of "anti-family" seems over the line.

Conservative Christians will remain a vital force, but after Iraq, they may not be as quick to jump on the "Christian triumphalism" in support of U.S. military action bandwagon.

Further, I expect that some socially conservative Christians will return, over time, to Christian populism that once again values labor first and capital second. The traditional Southern Baptist viewpoint for generations was skepticism over war and support for workers, albeit usually not through labor unions.

Further, I expect that some socially conservative Christians will return, over time, to Christian populism that once again values labor first and capital second.

Why not both equally? There is no labor without invested capital. (Including intellectual capital, such as the imaginations of novelists.)

Labor first, capital second. Because Abraham Lincoln said it, I believe it, and that settles it. :-)

The reason Christians excuse banks who charge 23-35% interest is exactly because capital is considered as valuable as labor. Personally, I think much of the community character of the nation has been destroyed precisely because of that attitude.

"Labor Omnia Vincent," the state motto of Oklahoma.

The reason Christians excuse banks who charge 23-35% interest is exactly because capital is considered as valuable as labor.

If I may, the great genius of laissez faire capitalism is that it gives wide latitude to interest rates. This is as it should be, since there is no intrinsic rate of return on money. The rate varies according to the time of the loan, the risks of the borrower, and the opportunity cost of money itself. That traditional religions give blanket condemnation to usury only shows that God didn't reveal much that was of practical use in this area. We are rich -- and the Arab world is poor -- in large part because we have abandoned this once-important rule of Christian morality.

Jason,

I'm not convinced that you believe in God at all, so your statement about what God did or didn't reveal is totally meaningless to me. I don't mind you mocking my faith, though, because I'm going to respond by mocking your business ethic standards.

The policies you advocate make a few people very wealthy but keep most folks on the plantation "picking cotton."

Your idea that banks accurately assess risk is laughable. At the same time that Bank of America decided to raise my interest rate to 23%, Capital One opted to lower it to 8.9%, and not on a trial or intro basis. True, there is the difference that my BOA account is only five years old while my Capital One account is 13 years old. The reason BOA gave for raising my interest rate to 23% is that I have too much available credit. However, did I request that credit? No, it came unsolicited from BOA based on my "oustanding credit record." Then, having granted that unsolicited increase, they label me a credit risk for too much available credit. While my credit score of 735 could certainly be higher, BOA is simply playing games based on what I consider to be your perverted sense of business morality. My BOA account is now closed, of course, with the balance transferred to a better card. But many folks don't have that option and are simply slaves to the "master."

My view is that current business practices are destroying America's sense of community.

Finally, your assumption is that for interest rates it must be all or nothing -- either we don't allow interest or we place no limits. The reason that Arab countries aren't prospering isn't that they fail to charge 23% interest. Good that I never had the opportunity to borrow lunch money from you. :-)

Joel --

I do not believe in God. I don't think I've ever claimed to believe in God on this forum, and indeed, I don't think I've avowed a belief in God at any time in the last twelve years.

Also, I did not intend my comment to "mock" your religion. It was tongue-in-cheek, to be sure, but it was not intended as mockery. God's alleged revelations do not seem to reflect anything more than a bronze-age understanding of economics, while we have become rich in large part because we abandoned the prohibition on usury, a prohibition which formerly (and even today among the strict) permitted no interest of any sort whatsoever.

As to the implications of racism that you have raised, they are so outrageous that I don't feel the need to reply. How you expected me to take seriously anything that followed the plantation remark is just beyond me. But I will do my best.

You say that variable interest rates sometimes are not good evaluations of risk. I agree entirely; sometimes they make mistakes.

But a uniform interest rate of 0% is always a bad evaluation of risk. The risk is never 0%. What's worse, there is absolutely no incentive in such a system to loan any money at all -- and no incentive to repay it either. A uniform rate at any other fixed percentage is likewise a mistake in virtually all of the cases where it will be applied. Risk varies; interest rates should adjust the best that they can.

(I find it interesting, meanwhile, that you offered an anecdote that actually supports my position. You wrote: At the same time that Bank of America decided to raise my interest rate to 23%, Capital One opted to lower it to 8.9%, and not on a trial or intro basis. True, there is the difference that my BOA account is only five years old while my Capital One account is 13 years old. . It should be perfectly obvious that a company with whom you have longstanding business ties will trust you more. That's exactly how trust works. It's both just and entirely reasonable.)

Without the incentive that interest provides, there will be few loans, and without these loans, there can be no entrepreneurship. And without entrepreneurship, we would all be peasants -- or worse. This is the situation in much of the Muslim world, where, besides lacking the freedoms of religion and expression, the freedom to charge interest and to engage in business is often sharply curtailed. They are backward -- and desperate -- because they have not embraced capitalism.

But in any case, I found your final paragraph a gross misrepresentation of my views, and almost certainly a dishonest one. Nowhere did I argue for a uniform interest rate -- of 23% or of any other rate. (Honestly, Joel, where did you find this in my comment, or anywhere else in my online writings? Please, I ask you to have the courage to admit it: You just made this one up. Which is usually called "lying.")

On the contrary, I clearly argued for variable interest rates, which may be high in some cases and low in others. This, I thought, was entirely obvious from my post.

And about borrowing lunch money: I would never make a loan to someone who didn't appreciate the true value of money. So maybe you wouldn't have to refuse that loan after all.

Jason,

I'm not going to apologize for the plantation remark because it was directed at effect and not intent. My view finds great substantiation that lower income workers are going nowhere and basically have been since the early 1980's. They have been encouraged not to save and they haven't been. In your Ayn Randian morality, "suckers" get what they deserve. In my view, we have an obligation to try to discourage our brother or sister from falling.

Whether you consider me an honest person or not is irrelevant. I consider it immoral to charge 23% interest; you don't. We simply don't share the same values. The idea that the economy cannot prosper without 23% - 30% interest rates is itself a lie.

I consider myself a capitalist but what you consider capitalism I consider theft.

BOA wanted to have it both ways. They sent me a letter saying my credit record was "oustanding" and then they increase my interest rate because I am credit risk. This is dishonest marketing.

"Further, I expect that some socially conservative Christians will return, over time, to Christian populism that once again values labor first and capital second. The traditional Southern Baptist viewpoint for generations was skepticism over war and support for workers, albeit usually not through labor unions."

This is what I'm thinking as well. I don't believe green evangelicalism has the potential to shake things up too much, as enivironmental politics in the U.S. has always been a relative non-starter. There's much more support in the Christian tradition for a resurgent economic populism against the current "God and the Free Markets" theology that reigns in many evangelical churches today.

In your Ayn Randian morality, "suckers" get what they deserve.

Well, no. Or maybe yes, depending on what you mean. See, this is a huge equivocation on your part.

If by "suckers" you mean the victims of fraud, then no, they should not be made to suffer. (Actually, they should get what they deserve, which is compensation.) The people who perpetrate a fraud should be locked up. There are indeed such things as predatory lending practices, but advertising a high interest rate up front and offering it to anyone who will take it -- that is not fraud. It is offering a specific credit product to a specific population. If you don't like it, then don't take it. You are no worse off than you were before you received the offer.

If, though, by "suckers" you mean the people who will not work, who don't care to compete, or who foolishly make bargains they should not have made -- then yes. They will get what they deserve, I won't stand in the way, and it will probably mean that they aren't quite as happy as the rest of us.

Jason,

I believe that most of the major credit card companies are playing a bait and switch game, entcing consumers with low rates that they don't expect will hold.

If the country goes into a major depression, we will being reaping what has been sown for the last 15 years.

Many folks are stuck with 25-30% interest rates not because they are lazy but because health care has become so expensive and because consumers have been pressured to buy ordinary items such as food on credit. Those who make foolish decisons must accept responsbility but society also has a moral responsibility to value community as well as profit.

Many of the credit card companies were also caught deliberately failing to timely process payments so that they could jack up interest rates and charge late fees. But such abuse went on years before authorities could amass the needed evidence to put stop to the practices.

My hope is to avoid the massive social rift that has developed between rich and poor in Mexico, a division the Catholic Church has been impotent to heal.

I value freedom, but not to the destruction of community.

Odd that my remark about capital sparked a discussion of credit cards, considering that they're used almost always for consumption and rarely for forming capital, the raw assets for commercial enterprises.

Alan,

Not odd at all because my complaint is that those of lower incomes are being discouraged from acquiring capital, either intentionally or inadvertantly and that the credit card is one piece of the anti-capital puzzle.

Many of the credit card companies were also caught deliberately failing to timely process payments so that they could jack up interest rates and charge late fees. But such abuse went on years before authorities could amass the needed evidence to put stop to the practices.

I agree that this is a genuine abuse. I do not agree, though, that variable rates are dishonest. Only a fool would fail to read the fine print. And as to buying food on credit, well... If these people have bought luxuries using cash, then they have indeed been foolish. Money is fungible, after all, and even children can understand the principle of fungibility if they choose to.

Jason,

If credit card companies would put in bold print that their initial offering means nothing for the future, that would be fine. Actually, because of complaints, more credit card companies are stating up front that their initial rates may be changed for any reason.

My own view is that if people are so credit risky as to require loan rates of 27-30% they shouldn't be offered loans at all.

I believe that our society would still be able to prosper if interest rates were capped at 15%, assuming a modest rate of inflation.

Only a fool would fail to read the fine print? I disagree. Every year, because of the immensity of paper work, highly educated executives sign all types of papers they haven't read or read carefully. Congress voted on the Patriot Act without reading it.

A great many folks just don't have great reading skills or significant financial sophistication. I don't think that makes all of them fools. Further, I have 11 years of college and even I have trouble understanding some of the fine print because it is deliberately written to confuse.

What you see as good business practices I see as greed and exploitation.

I feel that Joel and Jason are somewhat talking past each other, by not distinguishing between two issues: that of a maximum interest rate, and that of the bizarre, baroque, and basically dishonest tricks currently practiced by the credit trade. I'm inclined to agree with Jason about the former, but Joel about the latter. (I definitely agree with Joel about 'reading the fine print' -- I can't imagine that anyone who isn't a hermit and/or has a bad case of OCD could take the time to read all the text of everything they have to put their name to, or click on, in today's world.)

My own view is that if people are so credit risky as to require loan rates of 27-30% they shouldn't be offered loans at all.

Then how would these people ever become good credit risks again? How would they ever be able to prove themselves worthy of more generous terms? I am once more tempted to say that it is your view, and not mine, that would result in a permanent underclass.

Also, anyone who assumes that their interest rate is set in stone these days is simply -- I lack any better word for it -- a moron. These things change all the time, and that according to the decisions they make (not paying bills, running up a huge debt, etc). Maybe you don't have time or inclination to read all the fine print. But this stuff should be obvious.