Church comments on SEC settlement

[Moksha]

Bill Reel posted a thoughtful comment on r/exmo:

Bill and RFM have a wonderful exposition on this topic at Mormonism Live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81zb4ZQx6gM

The Church never expected its deceitfulness to be revealed. Now it is up to each member to gaslight themself. With enough faithful digestive enzymes and a colon full of the gospel, it can easily be accomplished with gaslight to spare.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Who was it that said:

Though their method of thievery may be immune from correction in this life, sophisticated thieves in white shirts and ties will ultimately be seen and punished for what they are. He who presides over that Eternal Tribunal knows our secret acts …

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

I think it’s pretty obvious that the LDS Church never really took certain forms of business chicanery seriously as dishonest or sinful. They were also accustomed to a history of hiding polygamy because they did not accept its illegality. They also don’t truly believe that hiding their wealth is wrong except in a technical sense. A 5 million dollar fine is no biggie, just the cost of doing business.

So, yeah, I don’t take LDS leaders seriously as judges of virtue. At the same time, I kinda chuckle at Bill Reel’s emotional reaction. Am I to understand that this late in the game, after all he has learned, he *really* gets so upset when Church leaders wink at certain forms of financial corruption?

They have built a system tailored to wink at such things.

Shrug.

So easy not to pay “God” tithes through these guys.

Seriously, LDS leaders, thank you for making it so risk free not to tithe. No one will suffer any consequences for not sending more money to your coffers. They stopped being divine accounts many years ago.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

[MG 2.0]

You should’ve done that in the first place, but we also can see plainly why you chose to only quote the bit you did. It’s because you’re a dopey muppet shill. Gross.

- Doc

No. It was to show that there wasn’t some kind of nefarious intent. That the Brethren’s motivations were benign in respect to the members of the church.

Earlier someone said that their motivation is all about profits.

I then asked “why”.

No answer was forthcoming.

The prevailing opinion here is that there was some kind of evil intent or motivation involved in this whole thing.

I again would ask, why?

Simple and raw power and dominion? I really don’t think so. I think the actual reasoning was given in my earlier quote from Roger Clarke.

Regards,
MG

Back on page 9 I posted this. Unless I’ve missed it I haven’t seen a reasonable answer to “why”?

I’ve heard ‘control’ and ‘profits’ but neither of these seems to make sense. Could the church have benign and altruistic motives for caching a lot of dough? And similar to Trump did they do what they did taking advantage of the then current tax laws dealing with sheltering money. Even if it now looks shady?

The fact is, as soon as they were made aware of the problems that the SEC saw in moving money around in this fashion they stopped immediately.

Maybe the answers to these particular questions have been given due diligence/justice. If so, sorry to butt in.

I’m still not convinced there was nefarious intent after all is said and done. Did K&M have some smooth talkers and convincing Trump like arguments to present to church leaders? Possibly. But they may have thought the ends justified the means as long as they weren’t outright committing tax fraud/crimes. It’s been a week or so since I did read the SEC document.

Maybe I’m forgetting something. That I wouldn’t doubt.

Why is the church stockpiling a lot of dough?

Regards,
MG

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

You didn’t read the SEC document. It’s like riding a carousel with you, man.

- Doc

[drumdude]

DCP's right about one thing. The story is a Rorschach test. Mormons went full Westworld.

7d3pqn.jpg (98.55 KiB) Viewed 321 times

[Dr Moore]

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... settlement

In June 2019, the SEC first expressed concern about Ensign Peak’s reporting approach. Ensign Peak adjusted its approach and began filing a single aggregated report.

This slippery bit of calculated deception hasn't been mentioned yet.

Here is the timeline.

• June 2019: SEC comes knocking. "Ahem, we don't like what you're doing here. It violates the law."
• Aug 2019: Ensign Peak continues to use shell companies to illegally file 13F disclosures, for period ended June 30, 2019.
• Nov 2019: Ensign Peak continues to use shell companies to illegally file 13F disclosures, for period ended Sept 30, 2019.
• Nov 2019, Lars Neilson drops the "$124 billion" whistleblower bomb on the world.
• Feb 2020, Ensign Peak files its first ever proper 13F disclosure, for period ended Dec 31, 2019.

Now read the the two sentences above again. See what they did? Deliberate, calculated effort not to tell the whole truth. If not for Lars' whistleblower videos, maybe the church would have waited all the way until the Feb. 2023 SEC settlement to finally vote unanimously on following the law.

How does anyone trust an organization whose leaders profess to be in the truth business, when they can't be relied upon to tell the truth?

[MG 2.0]

You didn’t read the SEC document. It’s like riding a carousel with you, man.

- Doc

Just answer. Why is the church stockpiling a bunch of dough? What nefarious reason can you think of that they would have?

Regards,
MG

[Moksha]

Just answer. Why is the church stockpiling a bunch of dough? What nefarious reason can you think of that they would have?

Regards,
MG

Smaug told them to get their own horde of gold. Because he was drowsing and buried under a pile, they took it to be the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Brethren took this Dragon suggestion and ran with it, as opposed to that so-called "do-gooder" talk of Jesus, where he saw wealth as a means to help the poor and needy. They have also figured out that great wealth gives them power and influence.

MG, part of the nefariousness you are asking about is the lies and deceptions told on the way to wealth accumulation. Even if the members will forgive everything, it is still better to treat them with respect and not lie to them.