“In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest.”
So opens Edward Chancellor’s fascinating book, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, a historical analysis of the most important number in finance and economics. “All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest is often described as the ‘price of money’ but it is better called the ‘price of time’: time is scarce, time has value, interest is the time value of money.”