1. What are the origins of the word credit? The Latin root of the word credit is credo, meaning to believe.

2. What is credit?

3. Why is credit important?

4. The lender demands “interest” to compensate for risk. List three types of risks and give a brief explanation.

5. What does credit have to do with economic expansion?

6. If credit stops or slows, how does this affect “the business of business?

7. What was Shylock’s relationship with Antonio in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice?

8. How were Jews set apart from other residents of Venice?

9. What service was provided only by Jewish merchants? Why?

10. Why, do you suppose, the Jewish merchants and moneylenders were hated by the Christians?

11. If the Christians were opposed to the Jews, why did they go to them for loans?

12. Why didn’t Christians just lend money to each other without interest?

13. In Italy, money lending began moving out of the ghettos and was adopted by Christians as banking. Describe the wealth and influence of the family from Florence (the Medicis) that adapted and revolutionized the established practices of banking.

14. How did the Medicis enter banking, if money lending at interest was a Christian sin?

15. The Arabic numbering system wasn’t embraced in Europe until the 1500s. What is it (briefly) and what changed in 1500 that was different in1200 when Fibonacci first introduced the idea in his book?

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1 The word credit was first used in the late 14 th century and it referred to the belief that one would be able to repay a loan Credit is now defined as the ability to borrow money or to be trusted in ... View the full answer