How much notice do you have to give? slot machine simulation in java Again, although short-term high-interest loans may (as Eck and Melanchthon claimed) help people through temporary difficulties without their being forced to liquidate assets (e.g. sell the family car) unnecessarily, if I lend money very short term and at high interest to someone that is already insolvent and that person defaults on other creditors shortly after repaying me, I have profited at the expense of those other creditors. That could be seen as akin to theft — capturing assets that should rightly be used to repay other loans.