Let us assume that the anecdotal stories we hear on the site are not examples of confirmation bias and actually are indications that the collapse is proceeding apace.
I would propose that somewhere within the COB once a month two figures are examined.
The first is 'Tithing' income. I put that in quotes because I want to include within it all 'voluntary' contributions.
If the anecdotal stories on this board are indicative then this figure is in decline … perhaps precipitously so.
This would be worrying to the 15.
The second figure is the cash flow from the 'investments' that the Church is involved in. Land, Shopping Centers, Condominiums, ranches, Money Market Funds, Insurance Companies, etc. etc.
The first figure is necessarily positive. The second need not be.
The question we must ask ourselves is … how prudent has the Church been with its 'Tithing' intake?
Have they invested with an eye to positive cash flow or are they relying on the Tithing covering a 'temporary' cash flow deficit.
The prior years have been good and it would have been easy to defer cash flow positive investments to some time in the misty future.
Well … that future may be now!
With the onset of the financial crisis the Churches investment cash flow, however prudent, may well have been affected.
The Tithing income, whether or not there is mass attrition, would have been negatively affected by the economic downturn.
I ask those who have been though downturns in Corporate America to identify the 'True Sign(s) of the Nail' indicating …
In my experience some of the signs are:
--- All 'investments' that are of themselves are negative cash flow are terminated as quickly and prudently as may be accomplished. For the Church this might include Third World expansion as the Tithing income may not cover the cost of a Chapel. In the First World this may include cutting back on Chapel/Ward/Stake/Temple construction,
--- Personnel are reduced ...sometimes drastically so. Besides the Janitors are there any signs of layoffs at the COB or at any of the investments.
--- Salary increases are reduced or withheld entirely. Any signs of this? Of course the one exception to this is that the upper echelon will take care of themselves. Any sign of 'strange' economic moves by the 15 or their allies?
--- Drastic moves of investment money as it is sloshed around from one 'bucket' to another.
--- Picking of the brains of those who may be trusted not to reveal the process to come up with any means of ameliorating the crisis.
--- Reduction of introduction of 'new product'. The cost of such may no longer be tolerated as the return on investment is uncertain. In the case of the Church this would be doing nothing 'new' that would disturb the Tithe payers.
There are others … but you see where I am going with this. The True Sign many not even be anything 'big' …
Anyone with COB contacts in re this?
Any signs of unexpected and/or otherwise unexplainable activity in the Churches bureaucracy?