Nobody forces you to accept bad deals. By the way, do you have time to talk about this amazing money-doubling service I've created?
Lol, have you ever been to Italy...? Banks will not lend to you unless you're quite rich already. Catholicism says debit bad, and the country is pretty conservative as a whole.
Italian banks making money implies two things: them screwing consumers (famously called literally "available cattle", il parco buoi, in local finance circles) and rich people getting richer.
the way "islamic banking" was envisioned, they created a problem then suggested an alternative which is the same thing, just with arabic names.
there is something called "shariah compliant banking" but "islamic banking" on its own is a misnomer and doesn't exist.
don't believe me, here is a video of Dr. Mohammad Shahrour on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEk_8-jaSUs
its really short but brings home the idea.
your next question might be "so...whats islamic banking then". the answer is simple. when you can't fight in a free market so what you do is change the market so that customers automatically opt for your "superior" product as opposed to the competition.
You can read up on this by finding "why need for islamic banking" arose. the problem didn't exist till then so someone just literally invented it and then sold a solution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba
> While Muslims agree that riba is prohibited, not all agree on what precisely it is.[2][3] It is often used as an Islamic term for interest charged on loans,[Note 1] and the belief this is based on — that there is a consensus among Muslims that all loan/bank interest is riba — forms the basis of a $2 trillion Islamic banking industry
This is enough to negate what you said here:
>it does not. there is absolutely no basis for "islam forbits interest".
Could you explain what you mean here?
>the problem didn't exist till then so someone just literally invented it and then sold a solution
What problem didn't exist and what was invented and what was the solution?
Italy is a highly conservative country.
Not sure if that explains their financial problems, probably not.
on edit: An Italian coworker just pointed out he wouldn't say Italy was very conservative, which I guess in a lot of ways is true - especially when compared to U.S and some other countries.
Maybe actually the 'Conservative' - 'Liberal' labeling doesn't work well in this case, for example Italians believe in free health care and in my experience do a better job at it than Denmark. In the U.S free health care is "anti-conservative"
> Not sure if that explains their financial problems, probably not.
I would say Switzerland is pretty conservative as well (if not more in some aspects but less in others)
Obviously I'm painting with a very broad brush. There are virtuous businesses, like anywhere; and it's still a G8 country with a massive economy. But it's not a country that, as a whole, values economic risk-taking. Somewhat ironically, I think we were more daring when the overall system was less free-market-oriented (the Italian State used to own a lot of large "strategic" businesses directly, up until the '90s), maybe because rich folks had to show they were better than the State at running things.
On social issues, it's a different (and very complex) story.
That’s true. A lot (most?) of Europe seems to be like that, though
you just need to have roughly 30% of the house cost cash and a stable job that pays enough, but with a 1.3k net salary (median income) and 30k you can totally buy a 110k home
talking about the north, if you live in the south just move already xd
From Wikipedia: "The present era of banking can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the centre and north like Florence, Lucca, Siena, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th-century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe."
. . .
"The word bank was taken into Middle English from Middle French banque, from Old Italian banco, meaning "table", from Old High German banc, bank "bench, counter". Benches were used as makeshift desks or exchange counters during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions atop desks covered by green tablecloths."
Catholicism isn't about "debit bad", it is about "interest bad" and this only applies to catholics owning banks. Historically this has left jews in Italy running banks and abusing its citizens (that cattle, or more accurately "goy" in native language of those bank owners) just fine since centuries.
Please remember that the Vatican created its own bank (financial group) to escape the jewish monopoly on banks. Within the catholic circles you'd hear them now promoting Santander as catholic-friendly option in Europe for normal citizens to escape that monopoly. Money lending isn't an issue within European catholic groups as long as it avoids going overboard with interests.
> money to start businesses
What proportion of bank lending is that? Close to insignificant.. Pretty much all small businesses/low collateral loans are backed by governments which are already pure profit for the banks