I thought it should have been more.

Consider that the COJCOLDS takes in billions, yet makes members pay for their own missions, clean their own buildings, use their own vehicles to perform callings, and not get paid for local callings. This is done in a largely tax-free environment in nearly complete secrecy.

This enterprise collects tithing from widows and seeks separate donations for missionary work, temples, disasters, and fast offerings. It also does the final shakedown by asking for estates of members when they pass.

When my sons served missions they still used our health insurance. When my wife brings meals to sick sisters the food comes from our table.

What I want to know is where is the rest of the money? It should me much more than 100...

And they have the gall to raise missionary costs from $400 to $500 per month. They should be reducing it,

Just think of the people from before I was a missionary in the early 90s who paid full price for expensive missions and paid tithing. Talk about a scam.

Lowpriest Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When my sons served missions they still used our
> health insurance.

I have three on missions. My eldest comes home today. I thought there was some help with the insurance when my middle got hurt at the Provo MTC. Nope. My insurance has paid for everything. You just have to deal with mission bureaucracy to get this done.

I'm sure you are waiting for the need to save you especially now. Since you were a missionary, you probably have some idea.

I shouldn't be, but I am.

nuts than usual.

Too many priests on this board. I replied to SecularPriest. I told you I was more nuts than usual today.

Power went out in the middle of my work. That drove me over the edge.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2019 01:34PM by cl2.

But I've heard very good things about you, and you're being considered for 1st Assistant Associate Probationary LowPriest.

So keep your chin up (and your tithing!) and make sure those toilets are spotless. I'm sure you'll make it!

To-ga, to-ga, to-ga.......

Thank you Colleen! We are ecstatic. I'm hoping their missionary fervor will die down once they get back to their real lives and not the pretend world of pounding pavement for payments to their cult.

Keep in mind that this is NOT everything. It’s just one piece of a convoluted pie.

Exactly. You never know how much is under the tip of the iceberg. I just wish this one could sink something and not the Titanic this time.

They've probably got more Pharaonic grain bins stashed here and there. Isn't diversification a rule of thumb with big money? Even my 401k benefits people are always talking about spreading one's assets around as a way to fortify against challenges, and my entire retirement is a grain of sand pooped out by a bubbler crab compared to a $100 BN beach.

I'm sure they have more stashed somewhere in case an angry mob of starving peasants raids the grain bin. Heck, it might even be a strategic thing...show them this one so they don't look for that one.

And since I'm already conflating them into an abominably wealthy, deceptive, elite-supremacist, Illuminati-like cabal with a domination agenda, where do y'all think the luxury doomsday bunkers are?

Edit: that last question isn't meant to threadjack, sorry. If there are bunkers, they're probably full of cash.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2019 11:17AM by ptbarnum.

If I had artistic ability, I would draw a cartoon of grain elevators bustin out with cash. Nice image...

Yes and no. I knew they were hoarding money, but didn't know it could be so much. I'm convinced now that this is the "Ensign Fund," a fund that many employees know only loosely about, but the details of which are closely guarded, and known to no more than a handful.

Of course, it also demonstrates that the church is still addicted to secrecy, which apparently hasn't changed since the days of Joseph Smith, when the church maintained a secret church alongside the public church.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course, it also demonstrates that the church is
> still addicted to secrecy, which apparently hasn't
> changed since the days of Joseph Smith, when the
> church maintained a secret church alongside the
> public church.

They could come clean and start selling Second Anointings and then have their secret church be out in the open. It is too hard to give their people with money high callings to stroke their egos and empty their pocketbooks. Now is the time for them to make back whatever they have to pay the IRS using their secret anointing.

TBH I was really surprised. I thought that of their billions in income so much wasn't piling up.

And on reflection both Beneficial and City Creek were clues it was.

I feel stupid.

How many talks have you heard about tithing say that everything belongs to the lord?

Hyperbole?

A stake president once said that if times got tough he would have no problem telling the members to bring their food storage to the stake center.

If you are a TBM it all belongs to the corporation of the president of the cojcolds.

Lowpriest Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you are a TBM it all belongs to the corporation
> of the president of the cojcolds.

One of their covenants in exchange for their eternal family of hollow promises.

What I'm more surprised at is how a "religion" can just bald-faced promise some afterlife thing and the billions come rolling in...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2019 02:43PM by Elder Berry.

I am pretty confident the Ensign Peak money does not include their farms and ranches. The Deseret Ranch in Florida alone is worth somewhere north of a billion dollars. Slices are being taken off its western edge to make high end subdivisions for east Orlando.

They have lots of farms, all around the world. I don't know how many office buildings and apartment buildings they have, but I know they have some in Philadelphia, and a number in SLC.

I watched the seven-minute video. The 100 billion is for financial investments--something like 50% stocks, 40% bonds, 8% private equity, and the rest in cash. The video estimates that the real estate portfolio represents another 100 billion. There are of course other assets, including businesses that don't fit in either of those categories.

This would put the total value of the church's investments north of $200 billion; I'd venture a ballpark guess of something like $250 billion. You could add the net present value of future tithing, but I doubt the total would reach $300 billion.

So $250-300 billion all in?

>> "Is anyone actually surprised by 100 billion?"

Yes, Dr. Evil.

I'm still stuck on "one.million.dollars."

You need to think bigger! This is 2019. "One meeleon dollars" is a paltry sum these days.

o o
O~

:-(

SCOOOOOOOOTT!

Where is mini-me?!

Mini-me is here. where is mini-you?

Yes.

But it's not hard to figure out how the church pays for nothing.

It just burns me up when a missionary dies or is severely injured and the only thing the church offers are a few words. "We're sorry for the family. The family is asking for donations with burial, medical and transportation costs."

I plan on writing my own thread about how I felt about paying for everything, yet the church always stepped in to take credit for personal achievement.

Are you telling me that if a mishie dies his family foots the bill to ship the body home?

Gordon B. Stinky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you telling me that if a mishie dies his
> family foots the bill to ship the body home?

Yes.

Nobody passed on while I was serving, but a friend who was serving in Brazil knew a missionary that became ill. You know the story: he didn't seek immediate medical treatment for fevers until it was too late. The family like other members rationalized that his death was justified. He was needed on the other side. So a special conference was called to ask the missionaries if they felt inspired to ask their families for funds to help out the grieving family. The body languished in a morgue, not because of visa issues, but because the family didn't have the funds to fly a corpse back to the US.

The church pays SQUAT.

My Mom just revealed some 25 years after serving a church mission that she took out additional life insurance for accidental/death while I served. I was shocked.

-Oh I always knew the church wouldn't pay a dime if you got hurt or killed. That's why I paid for additional coverage.

I thought the church was hung up on expenses because there were too many fingers in the pie. But that’s not the case. It’s just good old fashioned greed. Gordon Hinckley, Gordon Gekko, what’s the difference?

Bernie is still living. That is the difference.

You can actually feel the greed around you constantly in that 'religion'.

Harvard's endowment is a mere 50B and it was pretty much the envy of the world.

I'm not surprised.

In the past, I've googled church budgets for a variety of Protestant congregations -- Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. A typical budget for a local congregation allocates roughly half of the donated (tithed) funds to local salaries -- i.e. minister, assistant minister, youth minister, organist, janitor, church secretary, etc. This is money that the Mormon church does not spend. In addition, these congregations typically send about 5-10% of their budgets to their denomination's headquarters for the denomination's overhead. We know that LDS, Inc. keeps almost all of the tithed funds, sending back only a relatively tiny portion for program expenses.

I also remember finding on my travels that the average donation to churches in the U.S.A. is 2.6% of a family's income. So your average U.S. church manages to run just fine on an average 2.6% donation. LDS, Inc., which does not need to spend money on local salaries, could conceivably run on a 1.3% tithe. Yet the church demands many times that amount from struggling families.

Yes, the Mormon church also has to cover mission expenses, BYU, and temple-building. So let's double the needed funds back up to 2.6%. I also read on my travels that the average contribution for Mormons is 5%, because not everyone pays a full tithe.

That leaves an average of 2.4% of tithes free and clear. Keep in mind that the average church donation in the U.S. is 2.6%. The amount of money that other churches take to run AND do charity is free and clear to LDS Inc. to invest as it sees fit.

I believe that the situation is far worse than even the current evidence indicates.

The scam will run as long as the members let it run. Sadly, they've been indoctrinated to believe that "God" needs their money.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2019 06:54PM by summer.

Summer, not that I intend to fault you in your attempt to figure shiz out, but you fell into the common mistake of comparing a True Church, Los mormones, with the churches of created by mere humans, and for mere humans.

Just ask any TBM.

Lolz!

Figuring shiz out is wearing out my brain. Normally I am rather good at math, but in this instance there are just WAY too many zeros involved.

I've started wondering if LDS, Inc. may possibly have some offshore accounts.

Well shizz Other churches have missionaries and universities and colleges too.

This makes me so upset! I remember as early as age 20 the branch president or bishop asking me if I could increase me tithing and fast offering. Branch president said that my funds are NEEDED for the less wealthy (I sure was not rich at age 20 living at my parent house). I always wondered where is all the money going? My catholic friends were not asked to give %10 and their meeting houses looked nicer than ours.

Yes I am actually surprised by 100 billion!

"To break the poverty cycle we must pay tithing" that also got me so angry how can they say that to people who are living in poverty? Again I was a very believing Mormon who really believed that gods only true church was the best charity on this earth!

I don’t know how much cash on hand they have because LIES, but I looked at their tax filings at one point, and I think they disbursed two $250 scholarships, and THATS IT!

Educational fund my ass.

IIRC, one of the Jet Blue guys made a contribution. It wasn’t much, but again, BIG FAT LIARS!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2019 01:59AM by Beth.

Yes.

I’m surprised. 100 Billion dollars is a lot of money.

Interestingly, if you divide 100 Billion dollars by the alleged 15 million members, you get $6,666.6666... dollars for every member.

Mark of the beast, baby!

(I’m so sickened that these criminals still take 10% of the income from even their poorest members.)

A nevermo perspective: it's helpful to understand how most people will see this.

To most people, the amount looks crazy, the hoarding aspect looks crazy, and the Church's official explanation looks "end times" crazy.

Most people won't get the greed and controlling aspects.

They will get: this is not normal.

I was most surprised that it came out, and the fact that they have an investment portfolio of $100 billion seemed believable on the high side.

What I'm most surprised and pleased about is that it was revealed.

There are good reasons for churches to invest money like capital reserves, employee pensions, and the like. But this Ensign Peak operation doesn't seem to have served any purpose other than to bail out the more public facing LDS-owned for-profit enterprises (Beneficial Life and City Creek).

My boss talked about how "your church" (quickly corrected him on that, I haven't been a member in nearly 13 years now) is in trouble. I said critics of the LDS Church have believed Ensign Peak was something shady, and now we have some proof it is exactly what we feared it was.

Yes, I thought is would have been higher like 500 billion, but then I realized that they have significant holdings worth billions in land, hotels, retreats, etc.

So they want everyone to believe that their chapels, temples, and schools are cash consuming in the tune of 5 billion and that they only come out ahead about a billion a year. Yet they have 100 billion in ready cash. The cult is putting away more than just a billion a year from tithes and offerings.

I am a little bit. The church has been crying poor and making members clean the buildings.but strictly on an honesty and integrity perspective, not surprised at all.

It's only part of what they hold. My concern is that it's enough money to make them too big to fail.

Not really. The largest corporations (Apple, Microsoft, Google) have market values close to $1T, and they've only been around for a few decades while the LDS corp has been around for almost two centuries.

I didn't read the article so I don't know what that $100B represents. I hope no one is dumb enough to think that there's a big pile of $100B in cash sitting in a vault somewhere. It doesn't work that way with that kind of money. I suspect that's in real estate, businesses, etc., spread all over the world. How many actual paid employees does the church have? How much is it paying out in rents, utilities, maintenance, etc.? (Not toilet scrubbing but professional maintenance which they have to pay for.)

I was interested in the part where the Whistle-blower estimated annual tithing income at $7b, and costs at $6b. How could they be spending that amount in any given year if they don't have paid clergy and housing etc? How much does a new temple cost to build? How much does a mission cost per year to manage?

I agree. I don't see how the church could possibly be spending $6 billion dollars per year.

I think there’s more.

Yes. The whistleblower said that there is another $100 billion or so in real estate and also the businesses the church directly runs.

So the church's assets are probably worth $250 billion or so. That sounds conceivable to me.

We would have to pick up members in our personal cars at our own peril. Some of these people were on the shady side leaving you and your insurance open to be sued if something happened like a accident. My understanding was that Church policy stated that missionaries were forbidden from driving anyone in a church owned car other than missionaries. The story was they didn't want to hold the church libel to lawsuits if an accident happened Once I found out that was it for the free rides on Sunday and socials no matter how many times we were asked to pickup and take home poor Brother or Sister so and so who needed drive. Protect the church but screw the members attitude. Although they would never admit it no doubt in my mind it was ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. Nickel here a nickel there and quess what you have 100 Billion.

That's correct.

Only missionaries in church owned vehicles.

So what would 19-21 year old missionaries do at their ward missionary correlation meetings?

Go down church rosters and highlight member's names of those who they thought should be VOLUNTOLD to go pick up their investigators. Then they would make a manipulative phone call, "Brother Jones, we really need your help. We have prayed and feel inspired to call you. We need you to drive over and pick up our investigators..."

When I went through teacher training, we were specifically told to never pick up students to take them to or from school due to liability issues.

I will (of course) give a close friend a ride, but not some random individual.