Fraud + Usury = Heresy

That title is a triple joke, that only somebody with my unique background of learning to program on a TI-99/4A, having an autistic obsession about theology & history, and being Roman Catholic would understand. So here's a bit of an explanation: In TI-99/4A Basic, the plus sign was overloaded to be a logical or. In the middle ages when the Church was who granted the Sovereign the right to rule, teaching of Heresy threatened that right, and could not be tolerated within the system, so the Inquisition was born to tear heresy out of society. And finally, today, when power comes from worship of money, it has become terribly apparent since September 2008 that Fraud and Usury are heretical devices to a free and open market.

Let me first define my terms with some examples:
1. Selling something you don't personally own is a form of fraud, unless you're being paid an hourly wage to do it. Yes, this means both selling on commissions alone is fraud, as is short selling (because you're selling something you don't own yet).
2. Selling something that you've lied about the quality of is fraud. This includes everything from advertising to selling CDS bundles made up of bad loans.
3. Paying somebody else to lie for you is fraud- on both your part and the party who is lying for you (credit rating agencies, anybody?)
4. Continuing to enforce a contract past the other party backing out of the contract is fraud (Time Share Industry?)
5. Charging a person in debt payments of more than 30% of their income is usury, as is charging them an interest rate that they can never pay down the principle with only 30% of their income in payments.
6. Loaning out or paying out more than what has been given you to loan out, is fraud. (Fractional Reserve Banking, Ponzi schemes, business run on credit instead of on profit).

Got the picture yet? Fraud and Usury are methods by which the rich gain power over the poor. They are the gunshots in the pistols of class warfare. But worse than that, they tear at the fabric of the free market itself, reducing the ability of other people to consume in far larger amounts than it increases the ability of the con artist to consume. These are the subjects of wealth destruction. And I for one, call for a new Inquisition to rid our society of such evil elements. A televised Inquisition! Let's see the bankers put under the pendulum until their families pay back their victims! Let's see the short sellers who throw people out of work with their evil market manipulation beheaded with their heads put on pikes on the trading floors as a warning to others. My religion may normally forbid capital punishment- except in cases where all of society is in danger from this person continuing to live- so let's give them an out: If they confess, they can be sold into indentured servitude working at a fast food restaurant until they pay back their billions.

But until this system can distinguish sin from virtue, can distinguish evil from good, and can punish evil, I see no reason to continue to support it. I have become an atheist- an atheist from Mammon.