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December 23, 2008
Bailing Out Sharia
Here's another one to file under Your Tax Dollar at Work:
The U.S. government's bailout of the American International Group is helping promote Shariah law, a lawsuit filed in federal court in Michigan alleges.
The suit — brought with the support of the Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit law firm that promotes conservative Christian values — claims that making U.S. taxpayers comply with Shariah, the Islamic legal framework based on the Koran, is unconstitutional.
This month, AIG announced that it would offer Shariah-compliant homeowner insurance policies, known as takaful, to U.S. customers through one of its subsidiaries. To be Shariah compliant, companies cannot earn interest and must agree to send a percentage of their revenue to Islamic charitable groups.
"Islamic charitable groups" often finance terrorism.
The lawsuit — by Iraq war veteran Kevin Murray, on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, against Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Federal Reserve — claims that by subsidizing AIG, the federal government is conveying "...a message of endorsement and promotion of Shariah-based Islam … and [a] message of disfavor of and hostility toward Christianity and Judaism."
In September, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve took a nearly 80-percent stake in AIG when it injected $150 billion to help prop up the troubled company.
But what's $150 billion of someone else's money? Apparently it's not enough to keep AIG afloat; some expect it to sink within the year despite the mountains of our money the government shovels at it.
On a tip from Matt L.
Posted by Van Helsing at December 23, 2008 9:15 AM
Comments
I asked some muslim about these sharia-compliant financial instruments on faithfreedom.org. Sharia forbids interest, so we asked the guy what the incentive was to the issuer. Bottom line is, it's interest allright, they just use a different word. Sharia, that's God's perfect law.
But anyway, I'm glad this guy is standing up against this. These bailouts are making me nauseous enough. Especially Citibank...they sent me a notice, after my money bailed them out, that they're jacking up my interest rate. F them.
Posted by: Karin at December 23, 2008 11:57 AM
Its unconstitutional to have a established state religion but still the left-wing ACLU has twisted this to meet their own needs becuase the ACLU is a leftists organization like the COMMUNIST PARTY USA and the SPLC(SOUTHERN,POVERTY,LAW,CENTER) run by some greey ambulance casing vulture MORRIS DEES
Posted by: Spurwing Plover at December 23, 2008 10:43 PM
I asked some muslim about these sharia-compliant financial instruments on faithfreedom.org. Sharia forbids interest, so we asked the guy what the incentive was to the issuer. Bottom line is, it's interest allright, they just use a different word. Sharia, that's God's perfect law.
Posted by: Karin at December 23, 2008 11:57 AM
The way shariah financing works is that the loan is backed by "tangible assets," in the case of a shariah-compliant homeloan this would mean that the bank "buys" the house and the homebuyer buys it from the bank, in installments, for a premium over what the bank paid for it.
So, yeah, in other words it is interest, and it's really just semantics to claim otherwise.
Shariah bonds etc. are similarly laughable: either the bond issuer backs them via a profit-sharing agreement on a venture funded by the bonds (ie. a large amount of risk is incurred by either or both parties) or the issuer backs bonds with assets that are leased to the buyer and from which the issuer expects to generate money. In other words the only difference is that the issuer specifies to the lender which of its assets are generating the income that pays the coupon on the bonds, rather than simply paying it (ie. there is basically no real difference.)
On the one hand, the availability of Shariah financing has pumped hundreds of millions of oil dollars into world financial markets and allowed investors elsewhere to basically scam some oil money back from the Middle East and laugh to the bank (although no-one will admit this.)
From a purely emotionless financial perspective bailing out an institute that offers shariah services is as good (or bad, more to the point) an idea as bailing out Citigroup or whoever else.
From a social perspective, state support for a company with a unit that provides a financial service predicated on a religious concept could and should be shot down.
Of course the reality is that the "separation of church and state" crowd really only want to do away with Christianity and could give a fig how much religion becomes de facto state mandated as long as it ain't to do with Jesus.
Posted by: mandible claw at December 24, 2008 1:00 AM
mandible, what a great point: church and state! Where is the ACLU? Where are the protesters? Where is the screaming and yelling and.......oh, right. It's not Christianity or Judaism. It's just a religion that wants to destroy the afore mentioned faiths and western civilization as a whole. Whew! For a moment there, I thought we had a problem.
Posted by: matt at December 24, 2008 11:45 AM
