Feeding the Fortune 500

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
_Dr Exiled
_Emeritus
Posts: 3616
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:48 am

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Dr Exiled »

My issue with DCP is that he is just citing platitudes about prudent finance. So what. We don't know if the church is or isn't being prudent or smart with their money or just average. They won't tell us. In the late 50's/60's it over-built and got caught as some real estate investors do being property rich but cash poor and not having enough to pay the mortgage. Then, Beneficial Life was bailed out during the last recession. Why? The mall was built but at what cost? What is the current return on the investment? Is it above average, average, or below? We don't know because LDS, Inc. doesn't deign itself to show the little people what it is actually doing with the widow's mite.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen 
_Stem
_Emeritus
Posts: 1234
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:21 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Stem »

Exiled wrote:My issue with DCP is that he is just citing platitudes about prudent finance. So what. We don't know if the church is or isn't being prudent or smart with their money or just average. They won't tell us. In the late 50's/60's it over-built and got caught as some real estate investors do being property rich but cash poor and not having enough to pay the mortgage. Then, Beneficial Life was bailed out during the last recession. Why? The mall was built but at what cost? What is the current return on the investment? Is it above average, average, or below? We don't know because LDS, Inc. doesn't deign itself to show the little people what it is actually doing with the widow's mite.


No doubt you have a good point. and part III is perhaps lamer, or more mind numbing than the first II parts. It feels a little like a child who barely learns something new nervously trying to explain that something.

He keeps beating the drum, though, by saying the Church invests. Yes, it surely does. It wouldn't operate at all if it didn't build buildings. Funny he uses the example of a 4 million dollar Lamborghini that loses value. The Church builds those Lamborghini's but calls them temples all the time. "Yes" says Dr. P, "but those are just GIFTS, they aren't investments". So he wants to make the point that the Church is being wise stewards with the money they have, but then says they are just throwing money away by building buildings, because the Church loves people. It's been the biggest reveal as yet--he doesn't really understand the very topic he's wishing to explain. The temples may lose in terms of land value investments, even though I doubt that overall, but the investment is moreso in the people who will turn around and donate money to the Church.

Possible scenario:
A temple gets built in an area and "serves" 10,0000 active families. How much time might it take for those families to contribute enough to pay for the cost of the temple? Well we don't know exactly, because as you say, the Church isn't transparent about these things. But let's imagine.

Let's say these 10,000 families average $50,000/yr. In tithing that is 50,000,000 dollars a year.

that means in 3 years after the temple gets built the members in the area might have given the Church $150,000,000.

The temple might have costed the Church $25,000,000 and an operating cost--maybe $10,000 a month (I mean it's all free labor), and perhaps property taxes--maybe another $10,000 a month. So what does the Church profit in 3 years? That's still maybe an +$120,000,000 profit in three years.

The older the temple gets the better the profit. In this sense building a temple and a ward building, for that matter, is actually a way for the Church to make money. The more buildings the more the members benefit. The more the members benefit the more likely they'll donate to the Church. And the more influence the members provide, the more members the Church will bring in.

The problem (risk), it seems, the Church runs into is it overbuilds sometimes. An area gets excitable for the Church and the Church over-reacts by over building, thinking it'll benefit in the long run. Only the area's excitement runs out, people grow bored of the show and move on. THen the Church has ward buildings and a temple that it can't financially justify. Oops.

But since the land is investment the Church can sale (which it doesn't want to do lest it look bad), or it can just hold on to it and let the profit of others justify it. Also, after it's built and paid for, the maintenance, operation doesn't take many members to pay for it anyway. And if it's not used much, it just sits there empty and turned out most of the time. Even if the operation costs $50,000/month it'd only take $5/month each from 1,000 active families. And let's face it, no temples are in that situation. Every one of them makes the Church money.

I'm predicting he's going to go on for about 4 more parts saying essentially nothing, by repeating himself and trying to explain simple concepts everyone knows and then say, "see....the Church is doing great and is doing exactly what I would do."
_Dr Exiled
_Emeritus
Posts: 3616
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:48 am

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Dr Exiled »

Yes. Where else can he go with this except to repeat simple economic principles and then try and claim the church follows them?

You make a great point that the purpose of temple building is to generate tithing dollars. I wonder if as you say, in areas where a temple is being built, tithing revenues possibly increase. Is it build it and the revenue will come?

I'd also like to see the numbers for the mall. They built it at the wrong time, right before the recession and overpaid. I wonder what their overall return is and how much profit it makes on a yearly basis. Who knows? But without these numbers, the principles Dr. P is relating are meaningless as far as the church goes because we don't know if it is following them or not.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen 
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Lemmie »

Stem wrote:
Exiled wrote:My issue with DCP is that he is just citing platitudes about prudent finance. So what. We don't know if the church is or isn't being prudent or smart with their money or just average. They won't tell us. In the late 50's/60's it over-built and got caught as some real estate investors do being property rich but cash poor and not having enough to pay the mortgage. Then, Beneficial Life was bailed out during the last recession. Why? The mall was built but at what cost? What is the current return on the investment? Is it above average, average, or below? We don't know because LDS, Inc. doesn't deign itself to show the little people what it is actually doing with the widow's mite.


No doubt you have a good point. and part III is perhaps lamer, or more mind numbing than the first II parts. It feels a little like a child who barely learns something new nervously trying to explain that something.

He keeps beating the drum, though, by saying the Church invests. Yes, it surely does. It wouldn't operate at all if it didn't build buildings. Funny he uses the example of a 4 million dollar Lamborghini that loses value. The Church builds those Lamborghini's but calls them temples all the time. "Yes" says Dr. P, "but those are just GIFTS, they aren't investments". So he wants to make the point that the Church is being wise stewards with the money they have, but then says they are just throwing money away by building buildings, because the Church loves people. It's been the biggest reveal as yet--he doesn't really understand the very topic he's wishing to explain. The temples may lose in terms of land value investments, even though I doubt that overall, but the investment is moreso in the people who will turn around and donate money to the Church.

Possible scenario:
A temple gets built in an area and "serves" 10,0000 active families. How much time might it take for those families to contribute enough to pay for the cost of the temple? Well we don't know exactly, because as you say, the Church isn't transparent about these things. But let's imagine.

Let's say these 10,000 families average $50,000/yr. In tithing that is 50,000,000 dollars a year.

that means in 3 years after the temple gets built the members in the area might have given the Church $150,000,000.

The temple might have costed the Church $25,000,000 and an operating cost--maybe $10,000 a month (I mean it's all free labor), and perhaps property taxes--maybe another $10,000 a month. So what does the Church profit in 3 years? That's still maybe an +$120,000,000 profit in three years.

The older the temple gets the better the profit. In this sense building a temple and a ward building, for that matter, is actually a way for the Church to make money. The more buildings the more the members benefit. The more the members benefit the more likely they'll donate to the Church. And the more influence the members provide, the more members the Church will bring in.

The problem (risk), it seems, the Church runs into is it overbuilds sometimes. An area gets excitable for the Church and the Church over-reacts by over building, thinking it'll benefit in the long run. Only the area's excitement runs out, people grow bored of the show and move on. THen the Church has ward buildings and a temple that it can't financially justify. Oops.

But since the land is investment the Church can sale (which it doesn't want to do lest it look bad), or it can just hold on to it and let the profit of others justify it. Also, after it's built and paid for, the maintenance, operation doesn't take many members to pay for it anyway. And if it's not used much, it just sits there empty and turned out most of the time. Even if the operation costs $50,000/month it'd only take $5/month each from 1,000 active families. And let's face it, no temples are in that situation. Every one of them makes the Church money.

I'm predicting he's going to go on for about 4 more parts saying essentially nothing, by repeating himself and trying to explain simple concepts everyone knows and then say, "see....the Church is doing great and is doing exactly what I would do."


He’s now on part 4 or 5 and says he’s not done yet, so who knows how long this will go on!

I did want to acknowledge your temple building scenario in light of something midgley posted:
The Temple in New Zealand, which is in what is called Templeview, which is just outside of Hamilton, was built entirely by what were then called Labour Missionaries--that is, young and some old essentially Maori Latter-day Saints who served for years constructing that wonderful building, as well as the High School called Church College of New Zealand and something like fifty meeting houses around New Zealand. The were give a bit of pocket money, and fed with truck loads food that poured in from all over the North Island.

And entire building industry was fashioned and the skills necessary were provided for this massive endeavor. Now, all of those buildings, including the Temple, must be substantially refurbished to meet new strict earthquake codes.
The difference is that the Church of Jesus Christ pays skilled contractors to do all this work, rather than that massive endeavor that begin sixty-nine years ago when I first served as a missionary in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In some ways the fact is that money can now purchase what only personal sacrifice and dedicated faith accomplished back then in New Zealand and in other places in the South Pacific like even those three chapels on Rarotanga in the Cook Islands and elsewhere in the Society Islands, which Americans tend to know as Tahiti because of he name for the main island, and also Samoa and Tonga, and so forth.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 4713331443


The part I bolded and especially the bits in purple just horrify me.

Is Midgley celebrating what basically amounts to not even indentured servitude? These people served for free, FOR YEARS???
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Lemmie »

Oh dear god. It gets worse:

Louis Midgley Kiwi57 an hour ago

Oh I can believe that the New Zealand government, much like several others I could name, just loves lots and lots of paper with all the proper stamps, and signatures.

One of the truly remarkable things is that the Church of Jesus Christ, when it got into that massive building program, injected into the New Zealand economy American dollars that helped solve a very serious post-WW II lack of very much needed foreign funds.

The then EnZed government was delighted when we turned up with US dollars, which they badly needed. I know that I have not explained this well, but that to which I point is true.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 4713655097


By conscripting gullible members to work for food? I don’t know much about this, but a couple of years ago, I looked into a situation where the lds church was getting new members in Africa to work for free, cleaning up and preparing land and buildings in the area that now includes the Kinshasa temple and other for profit land investments owned by the lds church.

There was much lauding of how loyal these new members were to provide all the necessary labor for free. In a country with profound poverty, why couldn’t the lds church provide jobs for these people if they needed their labor?

Midgley’s story sounds like more of the same.
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Lemmie »

Here is wiki, regarding these labor missionaries.

History
1950–1953

The construction of the school and the temple commenced in the 1950s. The labour for the construction was performed by volunteer workers known as "labour missionaries." Volunteers for the programme came from all walks of life, and from many countries.

The workers were given a very small allowance (10 shillings per week) for basic necessities, and initially were called to serve for two years. Many however extended their time upwards to between 8 and 10 years. Others left and came back later to serve additional missions.

The building missionary programme was considered a labour of love by its participants, and with the great sense of community that it engendered, it has made a lasting impression on everyone who was a part of it. A bond was created that has lasted, and the fruits of their labours are part of the lives of the members of the LDS Church in New Zealand.


The lds church is now worth, in my opinion, somewhere between 50 and 100 billion. They take full financial advantage of being able to define themselves as a church, and yet the full amount of all humanitarian monies distributed, across almost half a century, by all accounts amounts to only about 15% of what they take in as donations, YEARLY.

And they used generations of people as nothing better than indentured servants, and apparently continue today to claim all those hours of labor as part of the distributions they make.

There are times when I am truly ashamed of the church in which I Was raised.
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Lemmie »

As usual, Billy Shears gets right to the heart of DCP’s unnecessarily basic discussions of obviously well-known financial principles:
Billy Shears Louis Midgley • a day ago

Hi Louis,

My friends affectionately call me BS--no need to add a # to it.

This might come as a shock to you, but responding to this blog is a small, intermittent and unimportant part of my life. I didn't respond to this blog entry until now because I didn't read it until now. And I generally only respond if I feel I have something of value or interest to say.

Since you asked for my opinion, the first four entries in this series have been a bit disappointing. Professor Peterson assures us that there are some critics out there who don't know the difference between "spending" money and "saving" money. Not only that, he thinks they are so dense that in order to explain the difference between spending and saving he needed to spread the concept out across three lessons.

I suppose it is possible that there is some critic out there somewhere who thinks the church shouldn't save any money whatsoever and should spend or give away whatever comes in on a day-to-day basis. But I haven't had the pleasure of hearing a critic with that criticism, either.

So given that these blog entries are either responding to unimaginably stupid critics or are responding to strawmen, what is there for me to say? I totally agree that spending money is not the same thing as saving money, and I totally agree that every organization ought to have a bit of money saved rather than emptying the checking account to zero on a nightly basis.

I hope you are happy about that. Other than on the side-issue of whether the "certain critics" he is responding to actually exist, I totally, unequivocally agree with what Professor Peterson says in these first 4 blog entries.


−-
DanielPeterson Mod Billy Shears • 20 hours ago

Alas, such critics do exist.


−-
Louis Midgley Billy Shears • 21 hours ago • edited

I think that the necessary proof that "certain critics" actually exist is several have turned up challenging Professor Peterson now 4 Part explanation of Church financing. He does not seem to me to have fashioned a Straw Man.


−-
Billy Shears Louis Midgley • 12 hours ago

It seems to me the critics here have completely ignored Professor Peterson's blog entries and are discussing more interesting topics dealing with "LDS Inc." Really--who is arguing "No way Peterson! Spending, saving, and investing money are identical!"


https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 4712378207



:lol:
(Although in my opinion, Peterson himself doesn’t really understand annuities, etc. If he does, then he’s just justifying the lds church’s financial greed with meaningless nonsense.)
_Physics Guy
_Emeritus
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 10:38 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Physics Guy »

In my experience most churches only use a small fraction of their donations for helping the needy. I'm still wondering what the LDS church does with all its money, though, because for most churches there's a simple reason why not much money goes out to charity, but this reason doesn't seem to apply to the LDS church.

I've been involved enough to care about inspecting the finances in three different congregations and the majority of weekly offerings has always been used to pay clergy salaries. Building maintenance was the other big item, and then operating costs for church activities, from communion wine to crayons for junior Sunday school. A fairly small fraction—like maybe 10%—might go to some social good work like a soup kitchen or something, though in other churches that I know less directly the extra money goes to support missionaries. And at least in urban churches there's generally a small cut that goes upstream to some larger church organization.

(Given these financial facts, I don't really see why any church ought to count as a charity. The ones I know are essentially clubs of people with certain common interests, who get together in a clubhouse that they collectively own, and who pay a leader to run the club and help them all advance in the hobby to which their club is dedicated. I don't see anything wrong with that but I also don't see any reason why the state should treat a church differently from any other non-profit club.)

None of the churches I've ever attended has preached tithing in the Mormon sense, however. There has never been any set standard for how much money anyone should give, and in fact I've heard it preached from the pulpit that while it's nice for people to support the church they should also be giving money to actual charities.

Most of the offering money that does come in stays in the local congregation paying local expenses that everyone understands. Most church budgets are open for anyone to inspect. I've never heard anyone complain that the clergy are getting rich; the salaries are decent but modest. The small cut that goes to a larger church organization is understood to go mainly to paying the salaries of the clergy in small rural congregations.

So the big differences I see in the LDS church are the strict rule of tithing and the fact that there are no paid local clergy. If any mainstream church congregation were content with unpaid amateur leadership, I think it would run comfortably on an average donation rate of one or two percent of after-tax income—the sort of money that most people are willing to spend on their hobbies. So my puzzle about the Mormon church is: what the heck is it doing with all that extra money that it takes in but does not spend on local clergy salaries?
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Kishkumen »

The bottom line for me is that I see no reason to give my hard-earned money to a church that lacks any financial transparency and engages in massive real estate deals that lack any direct ecclesiastical purpose. See City Creek Mall and the massive housing development planned in Florida. Now, others can choose differently and they do. That’s cool with me. I understand that the doctrines of tithing and consecration, and covenants to build the Kingdom come into play here. Furthermore, the faithful have implicit confidence in their divinely chosen leaders.

I am so far from seeing this formula in the way they do that I am unwilling to throw my money in a black box that pops out these kinds of deals.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Master_DC
_Emeritus
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Nov 08, 2019 8:54 pm

Re: Feeding the Fortune 500

Post by _Master_DC »

His entire series up to this point is such a bore. It is straw man after straw man. I don't believe anyone thinks the church should not have some sort of investment strategy. Dr. P has proven once again that there are no faith promoting answers to the true questions with regards to the church and finances.

The fact that they have to lead with "No tithing funds were used for this..." is a giant red flag to me for anything. I don't know enough to understand how to qualify this statement. Tithing is considered sacred funds, if you don't tithe, you are stealing from God. So, shouldn't any funds that the church has be considered sacred funds? Do they pay a tithe from this so-called non-tithing investment fund into god's scared bank account? These two or more accounts sound like they are different, so there should be a need to tithe i would think. Once churches engage in non-church activities, they should lose their BS tax breaks.

My home ward probably brings in enough annual tithing to maintain every church owned entity in the tri-state area I am in. Including the Temple. I agree with Physics above, something is broken and it is allowing these entities with good lawyers to take advantage of the system.
Post Reply