He did not understand what determines the interest rate. The principle underlying usury laws is somewhat absurd. Johnson desperately needs a loan. And so Johnson gets no loan at all. But that is not the theory of the usury laws.
Capital is scarce in Japan.
The objective of endeavoring to lower interest rates artificially . It is that objective which is behind half the economic folly of the world. It is folly and claptrap. The economic law governing money rates is eventually as inescapable and as unchangeable as the law of gravity. The second reason why governments popularized fiduciary media rather than prohibiting it is because they wanted to benefit themselves from the issuance of fiduciary media.