{"id":19917,"date":"2013-07-25T23:39:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T03:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=19917"},"modified":"2013-07-25T23:39:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T03:39:01","slug":"wonga-arrives-in-canada-to-the-sound-of-justin-welby-gnashing-his-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wonga-arrives-in-canada-to-the-sound-of-justin-welby-gnashing-his-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"Wonga arrives in Canada to the sound of Justin Welby gnashing his teeth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d never heard of Wonga until today but, thanks to the free advertising provided by Justin Welby, I\u2019ve not only heard of the company but discovered that it now has a Canadian branch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Archbishop of Canterbury – eager to set the world to rights, presumably because it looks easier than setting his church to rights – was furious<\/i> to discover<\/a> that, having denounced Wonga, the CofE has indirect investments in it; Wonga is a short term loan company with outrageous interest rates.<\/p>\n

Investing in Wonga is, according to Anglican lights, not ethical<\/i>, implying that Wonga itself is not ethical. The reason, I imagine, is Wonga\u2019s interest rates: if you borrow $500 from Wonga and repay it in one month, you will have to repay $600 \u2013 20% interest per month. That is atrociously high; but unethical? Surely it would only be unethical if the actual interest rate were concealed from the hapless borrower until it was time to repay.<\/p>\n

When does an interest rate cross the threshold from ethical to unethical? A credit card company\u2019s 1.5% per month is still high but it doesn\u2019t seem to have met the Anglican criterion needed for ritual excoriation.<\/p>\n

Justin Welby clearly doesn\u2019t think charging interest on a loan is inherently unethical because he wants to set up credit unions in competition with Wonga. They will still charge interest but they won\u2019t make a profit.<\/i><\/p>\n

So profit \u2013 or capitalism, really \u2013 is the enemy.<\/p>\n

Here we go again: another Archbishop of Canterbury who hates capitalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d never heard of Wonga until today but, thanks to the free advertising provided by Justin Welby, I\u2019ve not only heard of the company but discovered that it now has a Canadian branch. The Archbishop of Canterbury – eager to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[2186,1640],"class_list":["post-19917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justin-welby","tag-justin-welby","tag-wonga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}