Posted by:
AmIDarkNow?
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Date: August 03, 2016 11:44AM
cheezus’s post:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1854172got me thinking about this again.
I’ve said this before but I think it needs to be broadcast to the masses.
I wish, wish, wish someone who can do simple but nifty charts that can show the future value of money for different level of LDS tithe payers would put something on the web to make this absolutely clear.
My thoughts are not necessarily perfect but I’ll try to covey them best I can. Please elaborate better than I if you can.
Paying 10% tithing for the average Joe LDS family is slow financial death. The family gets locked into a kind of financial limbo. Also that death comes with a double whammy. The added factor is the negative effect. Pay $500 this month and you are in the negative five hundred dollars. Getting back to zero means gaining that money back without the benefit of interest on that money. It can’t appear out of nowhere so must be replaced by extra hours worked, a part time job or some other means. (I think this is why many LDS families get involved with MLM”S. Over time they begin to see no increase in their financial situation so they turn to get rich quick schemes)
It’s the tithe payer that is blessing the upper echelons in the church not god. Tithing funds all the church does out of the purview of the members. Look at the apartment complex the church just bought in Texas. Will that ever get reported in General Conference, in the Ensign? Certainly not.
I will make an assumption here but there must be several thousand people in the upper management level of the LDS Corporation that benefit directly from tithing income including their spouses and children. The members see their brothers and sisters who benefit from corporation investments that require managers and upper level officers to operate and who get compensated mightily and members think it’s because these folks living in opulence on the tithe payer’s dime are blessed by doing the “lords” work. Let’s not even get started on the back room deals that are never discussed or made known to the peasants.
Back to the tithe paying Joe.
Let’s take a $60k a year guy. He pays his loyal 10% at $6K per year. Let’s assume his salary never goes up.
At $500 a month for 20 years that is $120,000. At 30 years that is $180,000. No interest.
Now invest that same $500 at 3% for 20 years and it becomes $602,426. 30 years at 3% is well, you don’t want to know.
3% is basically the average level of inflation so you really only kept an even keel, if that is, the money was invested.
So for the average Joe LDS he did not give the church $120K over 20 years. He gave the church $602K and likely far more because Joes tithing also pays for professional investment advice that Joe will never afford.
So Joe lost the ability to keep up with inflation, the ability to earn money on investing that same money, the ability to pay for decent cars, education, vacations, to retire without worry or badly needed medical help. Joe gets stifled in continuous financial limbo with no way to ever, ever, ever get back to zero.
So how wrong am I? And can one of you financial wizards please make this a CES letter sort of thing for the money side of the church NOT telling the truth and how it affects a family financially?
I would use it as a point of factual information to help my kids see the light on the financial impacts aspect of being an LDS member.
Thanks.
AmIDarkNow?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2016 11:44AM by AmIDarkNow?.