<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'><br>Rn CL:<br><br>>This is if the correct analysis is to look at the device as a whole, then I would agree. <br>>But the question becomes, at what point do you look at "the device <br>>as a whole"? Because, if you look at a bank as a whole, one that makes a billion loans - <br>>then, even with a reasonable (eg well above 5%) risk on every <br>>single one of these loans, according to this analysis, the bank as a whole will still <br>>"work" and is "virtually guaranteed to make a profit" because spread <br>>over that number of loans at a reasonable level of interest, even having a <br>>significant number of loans going bad would still leave it with a tidy profit. So if <br>>you look at a bank as a whole, then you can say that in fact the bank takes <br>>virtually no risk whatsoever, or has only a one in billion chance of not working. <br>> Thus if your overall "one in a billion chance of not working" is applied to a bank, <br>>whatever heter iska you attempt to write for any individual loan is completely irrelevant, <br>>the bank takes virtually no risk, and hence cannot charge interest.<br><br><br>I don't know about the broader issue under question, but I want to point out that Rn Luntz's analogy <br>doesn't really work. Even though the many successful loans cover for the loans that fail, that doesn't<br>mean the bank doesn't lose. If the loans that failed hadn't failed, the bank would make even more profit<br>than they do. So, the bank has a loss.<br><br>The confusion seems to come from the attempt to compare the bank loans to the 'Shabbos switch' that began<br>this discussion (and, similarly, to a coin toss). But, with the switch, you either have a success (the light comes on)<br>or a failure (it doesn't). But a bank's outcomes aren't dichotomous like that: Sure, the bank doesn't fail because of<br>one failed loan. But, it has less success than it would otherwise...<br><br></div></body></html>