“THE CHURCH’S FIRM” – 60 MINUTES reports on the $100 billion fortune built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and whistleblower David Nielsen’s allegation that instead of spending the money on good works, hundreds of millions were used to bail out businesses with church ties.”

https://www.paramountpressexpress.com/cbs-news-and-stations/shows/60-minutes/releases/?view=106543-60-minutes-listings-for-sunday-may-14-2

Thank you for the "Heads up," I will tune in.

Then they can do a story on Chad and Lori as their season opener in the fall, then maybe Kouri Richins, then Real Housewives of SLC, then Ammon Bundy, then the pending tax fraud case of the FLDS for that biofuel tax credit scandal, then.....

It's always something with the Mormons. 60 Minutes could make UT/ID/AZ a quarterly feature.

Wow Thanks Will watch for sure. I think back when my wife was ill and I worked two jobs for a year, engineering supervisor during the day and moonlight work for an electrical firm at night, so we could pay our bills and tithing. Ugh. They did not need my money and I did not need to sacrifice life I did. It was all for a fraud. It makes me angry to have been manipulated to give them 10% and it is used primarily for business interests and not to benefit individuals.

Has Nelson been interviewed on 60 Minutes as a global faith leader?

Highlights would be his night light pen, his two wives er, I mean Brother Wendy and Ms Dew, his personal biographer.

Three wives: Dantzel, Wendy and her wife Sheri.

are you forgetting or did U overlook the sacred rock/stone (yes, verily the one that Joey put in his hat to 'translate' the gold <like> plates)

then, interview Russ & ask him to submit a complete, detailed list of financials including assets & the contents of the Cottonwood Caves, all artifacts & documents.


Woe, I'm dreaming again.

Don't the federal whistleblower laws allow the tipster to keep a percentage of any recovered funds? Cha-ching! Wow! That could be huge!

AZCrazy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't the federal whistleblower laws allow the
> tipster to keep a percentage of any recovered
> funds? Cha-ching! Wow! That could be huge!

MS Podcast mentioned this when they covered the SEC fine with SEC Whistleblower attorney Mark (can't remember his last name). But Whistleblowers can get (I believe) 20% of recovered funds. But that percentage is split among all whistleblowers, not 20% each. With Ensign Peak, there are at least two whistleblowers, David Nielsen and another one who has remained anonymous. There may be more that we do not know about. So of the $5 million fine, assuming there are only the two whistleblowers, they would split $1 million, so $500,000 each. They will pay taxes on the payout, plus about 15% in attorney fees. So after splitting the payout, taxes, and attorney fees, they might pocket a couple hundred thousand each. Nothing to sneeze at, but given the devastating affects on Neilsen's career (no investment firm will ever hire him again), this might, at best, cover him to go back to school and get a different degree and start a new career. But it is not something he can retire on and go live a life of luxury.

If I believed in a god, I might pray that my parents would watch this. I have said a few times over the past decade that the leadership of the LDS church is rotten, and is involved in shady business dealings. I don’t think it is enough for my parents to leave. They are still happy to cherry pick the information and beliefs, which keeps them faithful members, happy to contribute to the coffers.
Information without legislation doesn’t change practices. LDS Inc should lose tax-free status.

I wonder if the Alberta Mormon guy who is a forensic accountant, who reported on the millions of dollars in tithing going to the BYUs and cheats Canada Revenue Agency has been called to a court of love for his honesty?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2023 07:19PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Here's a 30-second promo for the segment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbvuVYpNLBQ&t=31s

Omg! LOL! That literally made me laugh out loud!

I'm sure that was a very strategic edit to cut it off right there but it certainly turned out to be very much a "punchline"/gotcha framing.

That video was too short. I wanted to hear his answer to what is the difference between secret and confidential.

I'm surprised he didn't say it was sacred. It seems that to LDS Inc, secret is a bad word and replaced with either sacred or confidential.

The man being interviewed looks like a slime ball.

> That video was too short.
> I wanted to hear his answer

You watched a promotional ad designed to GET you to watch the program!

If they'd provided his answer, why would you watch?


EOD, BYU '70, Adv & PR

I watched it so I can get the answer. Here is the answer.

https://www.tiktok.com/@exmodad/video/7233086978684718378

https://www.tiktok.com/@exmodad/video/7233295540467928362

The resources are not for the second coming.
The resources are for the continuity of the operation and the future. The mall was not a bail out the mall was an investment. The mall is bringing in returns.

subeamnotlogedin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That video was too short. I wanted to hear his
> answer to what is the difference between secret
> and confidential.

I watched the whole interview with David, the exmo whistleblower, and the Mormon bishop, who is one of those responsible for overseeing the funds - there was no follow up question to that comment by the church rep.

Interesting website re the question: "What's in a Word":

https://www.inspirebytes.com/2022/08/whats-in-a-word/

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” – William Shakespeare

"This famous quote by Shakespeare seems to imply that names are somewhat irrelevant, at least that is a common scholarly interpretation. But are names irrelevant? More to the point, are words irrelevant?"

-----

To me, anyone who has to watch their words as closely as that Mormon rep did after that question, and throughout the interview in fact, knows they are in a situation where they have to tread very carefully indeed. That is so obviously not an honest way to deal with others, members and outsiders alike.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2023 10:54PM by Nightingale.

I can't see the video. Error message: "Not available in your country".

Wow. I don't live in the Outer Hebrides.

Nightingale, I see that message a lot from US sites....and I can see the US from here! hehe

Ha. Yeah. Me too. In some areas if I go one street too far south I'll be in the clutches of US border control without my passport. Eek. Guaranteed not to be a welcoming experience. You can't blame them, they're just doing their job. I do blame my missing navigation gene that's got me into trouble more than once. And that is not, by the way, an acceptable excuse for border officials. Fortunately, I look clueless rather than harmful. I think. I hope.

One reason to get a VPN. If I can figure out how to make mine work I can watch shows from Ukraine. I need a teenager!

I am going to watch the LDS whistleblower today. Brave people who have brought the 100 billion dollar rainy day fund to light.

I will watch for sure. But I know it will make me angrier than I am now.

Honesty is not important to the leaders of the LDS (aka Mormon) Church and it never has been. They are so selfish and dishonest and then they hold themselves up as being righteous men.

Someone from the high ranks should serve prison time.

Just watched...his last words were "i saw what I saw and I know what I know!"

He stated that someone at Ensign Peak told him that the church was concerned that if information about the hoard of wealth was disclosed, it would be in danger of losing its non-profit status. So church officials knew that if the amount of its investments were to be disclosed, it would be widely perceived as being wrong.

The fine was from the SEC. If the IRS ever decided to go after this matter, Nielsen's reward would be much higher, up to 30% of the recovered funds. But in my opinion the IRS is unlikely to do that for political reasons.

There was nothing new in this report that anyone following the story hasn’t already seen.

That said,the few active Mormons who saw this might have questions which will be quickly dismissed as the tribe being persecuted by the big, bad government.

It was too short. It was bad press for LDS Inc., though, which is a good thing.

The Mormon man defending LDS Inc. looked and talked like he stepped out of the Netflix documentary, "Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey." He had that creepy FLDS vibe.

I actually felt sorry for the poor bugger, a lowly bishop.

For Mormons who aren't supposed to turn down a calling, he drew the short straw.

They sent a forgettable man to take the heat - much like those poor dupes who had to sign the fake SEC docs.

Couldn't they have had one of the 15? Or even an Area 70? No. That would be too much exposure. So they sent that poor guy whose name no one will remember to make a humiliating appearance. He might get rewarded by being promoted to Stake President.

Edit:
My bad.
I didn't know he was an important dude. I just heard "Bishop"
Still, he sure didn't look comfortable answering questions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2023 11:51AM by Twinker.

If you are talking about Waddell, he is not "a lowly bishop". He is a member of the Presiding Bishopric, and thus a General Authority.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/w-christopher-waddell?lang=eng

Yup. The Presiding Bishopric oversee the financial side of the church. They answer to the prophet himself.

And he looks EXTREMELY pleased with himself...

They all look smug when speaking to the public. I doubt his bosses are so confident; I thought he got the worse of the argument.

I was also, however, chagrined to see that the word "Mormon" was never mentioned. That will have lost at least some of the audience.

In the words of Will Ferral as Ricky Bobby, "That Just Happened!"

And in the words of Chris Farley as Tommy Boy, "That was Awesome!"

I have tears in my eyes, it was beautiful man, so cold, so raw, but all of it TRUTH!

It just showed what the LDS Church is. An organization ran from the top and the people in the lower tiers have no say in how things are ran but they are expected to do everything the leaders say.

I laughed my ass off when the bishop said, "It's not secret. It's confidential."

The Mormons just love their word games. But they work well when preaching to the choir. Switch one word and suddenly it's okay to trust your leaders again. The accusation was only a "false alarm". Confidential! Yeah. That's the ticket!

I don't believe for a second the rest of the world gives a darn. 60 Minutes must have been hard up for stories. Mormons care and they would have been assuaged because the issues has been addressed meaning Satan has been put back in his place.

Confidential to me means private communications with a lawyer or a medical professional. It can also apply to things like school records or proprietary information in the business sector. But in the interest of fairness the SEC requires certain investment information to be public. The fact that the church's own fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, has more than $100 billion being invested is by law, not confidential, but instead a public matter.

Churches that are run in an ethical manner also realize that their financials should at a minimum be disclosed to their members, and ideally the public as well, since churches benefit from their tax-free status.

The Ensign Peak manager who spoke to Nielsen is correct that such a large stash of money that is not being used for charitable purposes is going to draw negative attention, and questions, from the general public.

Nicely explained. I see why you are a teacher. :)

I hope you are right that the general public will care at some point. I just find it hard to accept that in 2023 churches still are tax exempt. With religious belief waning and so many struggling financially how can this be? Is it just a hang over from a more religious America from times gone by? People are less religious but religion still decides most everything with the Supreme Court and Congress. Do only religious people vote these days? I am lost.

Exactly Summer.

The fact that Church Corp. files as a charitable religion for tax exempt status fully means NO confidentiality of how the funds are used. But let it be TRANSPARENT for all donners to see their charitable donations being used properly. No different than the United Way or any other charitable cause.

Waddell screwed LD$ Inc. further in the corn hole by using the word confidentiality.

Hell, even for profit publicly traded entities have to disclose their balance sheets on a quarterly basis to the share holders. You see, this is the shit that is gonna piss off Corporate America. How come LD$, Inc. get's a free pass and we don't???

Hey Waddell, step into my office cause your FREAKEN FIRED!!!! Idiot.

My mom pays tithing online because she doesn't want the bishop of her ward to know how much she earns.

The church already has poor reception to their missionaries. Hopefully more people will raise this point when they come a knockin' so it will filter back to the missionary squads.

That will undoubtedly happen. It probably already is.

And think who 60 Minutes' market is--older, white, conservative Americans, which comes close to identity with the church's target audience.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2023 05:48PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> And think who 60 Minutes' market is--older, white,
> conservative Americans

And a few Canucks {{cough}} {{cough}}

Just under 200K as of Jan 2020.

The most in (guess where) Alberta (83.5K).

Next most in British Columbia (31K).

Least - NWT/Nunavut (152). They must be lonely. How many missionaries spend time in Nunavut I wonder.


Here's an old article about that (2004):

https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/mormon_missionaries_target_iqaluit/Mormon missionaries target Iqaluit


Excerpts:

"Several months ago, Iqaluit resident Brian Higgins made a trip to Ottawa, where he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now that he’s back home, two young missionaries have followed him, hoping to bring the Book of Mormon to the Eastern Arctic."

Brrrrrr


"It was June when Higgins was browsing for a book on Mormonism at Chapters book store in Ottawa. By coincidence, a clerk at the store was a member of the church. The clerk invited Higgins to attend a church service, and on Sunday, picked him up at his hotel.

"A week and a half later, Higgins became the first Nunavut convert, thereby alerting church officials to a new part of Canada thirsty for religion."

“The overall goal is to bring people to Christ, through baptism,” Gamble [mish] says. “Up here, more so we’re just kind of introducing the church to the North, just to show that it’s more than the TV commercials.”

Neither of the young men expected to find themselves in the Arctic when they were assigned to the Quebec region, but both have been pleased since their arrival on Sept. 3."

Ha, yeah, a bit of a shock.


“I would say the response here is more open than the towns I’ve been to in Quebec,” says Gamble, who previously spent time in Quebec City, Chicoutimi, Valleyfield, and downtown Ottawa."

That's what I said as a JW proselytizing in Quebec in Catholic areas. Yow.


“Religion is not always an easy thing for people to accept, and yet it seems like in Iqaluit there’s a warmth in the midst of the cold, there’s a warm spot for religion.”



"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a Christian church that emphasizes the importance of family.

"Members study the Book of Mormon as well as the bible. Church founder Joseph Smith is credited with discovering the book inscribed in gold tablets in New York State in 1823."


I'm surprised they'd go up there but looks like nothing much was happening for them in Quebec. So that hasn't changed then. :P

Consider yourself lucky, NG, that I didn't characterize the Jeopardy audience!



;-)

Ahem

I am a problem you will eventually solve.

Thanks for the laugh.

I needed it today. Spring cleaning - a little late. Makes me crabby.

I'm going to complain to God when I get there that He created too much dust. Sheesh.


ETA: Shoulda said IF. If I get there.

Not good to take things for granted.

Plus. I know a whole heckuva lot of folks have more, much more, to complain about than I do.

Still, I do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2023 07:03PM by Nightingale.

Being a teacher, my spring cleaning gets diverted to summer. However the past few years, it doesn't get finished. There's always retirement, I guess. :)

This podcast is very long. It's worth the listen.

Pod caster Corbin Velluz a defense attorney who has gone by the name of Consiglieri on the pro mormon and Dr Shades board interviews Spencer Anderson, an accounting professor regarding the shell companies the church established as a method to avoid accurate reporting.

The headline is "Red-Handed! How the First Presidency got caught breaking the law"

The pod caster goes by the name RFM R-radio F-free M-mormon.
https://youtu.be/ScROAa1nOEo

Oh it will be pod cast food for awhile. Fine paid. This will be old news fairly soon.

You seem really invested in promoting this narrative. You keep repeating it. Neither LDS Inc nor many of us are buying it.

The 60 Minutes piece and the other financial scandals (Ensign Peaks and the $100 billion, the shell companies and the fine, Canadian tithing sent 100% to BYU schools, Australian tithing, which is not tax deductible in Australia, redirected to a supposedly legal charity that seems not to be in compliance with the law, not to mention that it is an end-run around Australian tax law, and resort property in NZ used as a perk for church mucky mucks)

All of those issues are going to leave a mark, and I predict that it will not be soon forgotten. And I fully expect more. Possibilities - management of the Deseret Ranch by Orlando. Their huge pulpwood farm near Pensacola. Ranches in Nebraska, Wyoming, Alberta, and Utah.

Plus every quarter the value of the Ensign Peak stock portfolio will be a news item. I expect they will sell off some of their stock and buy more non-reportable assets. They hate transparency.


This is absolutely not going away. In ten years, we'll know who is closer to right, whether this is a big deal or a nothingburger.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The 60 Minutes piece and the other financial
> scandals (Ensign Peaks and the $100 billion, the
> shell companies and the fine, Canadian tithing
> sent 100% to BYU schools,

In case somebody hasn't seen the article about the Cdn tithing money, here's a link:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mormon-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints-funds-charity-1.6630190

One billion dollars collected from 200K Canadian Mormons (over 15 yrs) sent to BYU.

I don't know tax law - so here's my question: How is sending money to a church-owned uni considered charity?

Even being legal (which I don't understand), it comes across as sleazy.

The excuse that they have to save for a rainy day because in the dim & distant past the church has been in debt is very thin. Meanwhile, the unis get funded via (mandatory) charitable donations?

> All of those issues are going to leave a mark, and
> I predict that it will not be soon forgotten.

You would think so. Hope so. Any time soon would be good. It bugs me severely, on three fronts: (1) The fact that tithing is (essentially) mandatory for Mormons. (2) The fact that the church claims brownie points for funding universities - it seems benevolent so brings them good will, at least. (3) It's just not honest. Using every angle and loophole in order to accumulate wealth while proclaiming one's charity, and continuing to mandate tithing payments from members that causes difficulties and stress for many is just not admirable.

WWJD.

The money that was sent to the BYUs would have been enough to give the Canadian students a full ride many times over. I think it was somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000 per Canadian student per year, IIRC.

This is the U S of A already. Nobody can force you, as an adult, to participate in organized religion. I concede that I came groveling back to Utah for my job. I don’t try to fool anyone that I believe even a little bit. Can’t imagine who this guy had to fool about his personal “convictions” to come groveling back from wallstreet to hold that job. Ick!! Just…….Yuck!

"Groveling back?" Being a little judgmental, aren't we? People who come to Utah for a job are not necessarily groveling. I wasn't. And what makes you think he was not a believer when he took the job? You're jumping to a lot of conclusions based on no evidence that I can see.

I agree with BoJ. I found Nielsen to be very sincere. For some people, earning Wall Street money is not everything. For instance, a friend of mine left a high-powered Wall Street job to become an urban school teacher.

It sounds to me that Nielsen felt that he could use his talents to help the church invest money that would be used to pay for ongoing expenses and charitable works. The problem is that the money grew into a hoard of wealth that was *not* (in his eyes, and the eyes of many people) being adequately disbursed.

I had a friend who was a Chicago stock broker, who worked through that big weird crash in Oct ‘87 I think it was. He quit, moved to West Yellowstone, worked as a park ranger for several years, and worked as a cook at all three levels of restaurants at old Faithful. He mostly made money in the stock market to live on, and if he didn’t make enough some quarter, he got a job as a cook. He was good, and somebody always needed a cook.

He was in West Yellowstone until he died in 2020 of skin cancer, a major hazard when you live at a high altitude. Shortly before he died, he got the first video ever of Steamboat Geyser erupting. Moving to Yellowstone was not groveling. It became his entire adult life. It is not always about the money.

I have no idea what his salary was on wall street vs the salary he earned while working for EP.

Do you have any info on that?

My take on the situation is that he believed the church and the leaders to be honest, then later felt his position at ensign peak was requiring him to break the law and it was against his morals.

For all we know, he was making a decent wage?

If you have any info on his wall street vs ensign peak wage, please present it.

I could never watch such a program due to being so busy. Heavenly Father needs to save money on janitors so I need to clean chapel toilets. I also got to spend a lot of time nagging my gentile neighbors to get themselves assimilated into the Church so their brains can learn to think like mine.

Roger Clarke is was the head of Ensign Peak for 23 years. He also heads Wells Fargo Asset Management.

He had his own investment companies.

The reason I bring this up. He was allegedly told by the top 15 to not correctly file 13F forms for Ensign Peak.

The odd part of this situation: Roger Clarke had his own investment companies. He correctly filed 13F forms for his own companies.

The church claimed they had poor legal advice. That is the reason the 13F filings were incorrectly filed.

Caught in hot water. The church lied. Clarke knew better. He lied for the church.

If he correctly filed the 13F forms for his own companies, why were the 13F forms incorrectly filed for Ensign Peak? He lied.

These misfilings were not a mistake. It was intentional.