From the New York Times article ...
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"It’s one more in a series of failures and miscalculations by leaders who were given critical information and failed to understand it and act on it. Everyone was so focused on sanctions on Iran, Hamas was effectively ignored while Hamas pursued terror capitalism. The connections with otherwise legitimate financial actors are insidious — “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invested tens of thousands of dollars before the company was placed under sanction.”

Apparently, the church's investment firm, Ensign Peak Advisors, unknowingly purchased 200,000 shares of a Hamas-owned business.

Oh, dear!

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/16/world/europe/israel-hamas-money-finance-turkey-intelligence-attacks.html

"That money, American and Israeli officials now say, helped Hamas build up its military infrastructure and helped lay the groundwork for the Oct. 7 attacks. 'Everyone is talking about failures of intelligence on Oct. 7, but no one is talking about the failure to stop the money,' said Udi Levy, a former chief of Mossad’s economic warfare division. 'It’s the money — the money — that allowed this.' At its peak, Israeli and American officials now say, the portfolio had a value of roughly half a billion dollars....

...The Turkish company at the heart of the operation had such a sheen of legitimacy that major American and European banks managed shares on behalf of clients. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invested tens of thousands of dollars before the company was placed under sanction."

Someone at Ensign Peak lied to the bishop about their masturbation habit and lost the spirit of discernment.

It seems like some very unlikely sources favored funding Hamas.

That's inspiration and the Lord's money at work for you.

The LDS church has too blankin' much money! They seem to be desperate to find places to park their money throughout the world, with inadequate discretion. They have so much money they are parking it in banks to invest among every other kind of investment. It's what Jesus would want.

The Mormon church has so much money that they (unknowingly) funded a terrorist organization. The church unknowingly funded the Oct. 7th attacks. Not a good look. Perhaps the church should try doing charity instead? -- just a thought.

Jesus wants Nebraska.
Watch out Kansas - you are Next. More Wheat, more wheat!

MaybeAdam is calling for a Halloween wheat Maze!

The odds are very high that every large pension fund in the world has a direct or indirect stake in a Hamas business. The LDS is really just another investment fund trying to get diversification by taking stakes largely automatically through trading algorithms. The same is true of North Korea.

The same is even more probable with regard to people who have invested in cryptocurrencies. If you buy bitcoin, etc., you drive the prices a little higher for people who already own it; and that money is flowing into the coffers of both NK and Hamas.

This is embarrassing for the Mormon Church, but the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan will have done the same thing.

Well, on a bright note, teachers can claim ignorance since no one expects any better of us. ;p

I do!

And my expectations have largely been met--other than the ADA question, of course.

Business is booming.

bradley Wrote:
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> Business is booming.


I know you were thinking "ka-booming."

One of my buddies here in Tokyo is ex-military. He was in Iraq and saw where the money was going. He invested every extra penny into companies that made things that go "ka-blooey".

He's in his early 40's and retired very comfortably.

A lot of people claim this is just bad investment. However, the church has a history of putting money in Islamic organizations:

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2495397,2495397#msg-2495397

> LDS helped the Islamic Society of Orange County’s Al-Rahman Mosque in Garden Grove develop its library with a $15,000 donation. “Their beliefs are similar to ours,” Robert Bremmer, a Mormon bishop, said at that facility’s open-mosque day in 2005. “They have modest dress, and so do we. They believe in all the [Old Testament] prophets, as do we.”

Yes, that was a bizarre donation.

Christers get mad at me when I tell them that they and muslims worship the same god.

Future historians will describe the three Abrahamic faiths as variants of Abrahamic religion just as surely as historians now describe Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy as different forms of Christianity.

Or the Jains, Buddhista and Hindus.

Why not just give direct to Islam and cut out the Middle Prophet (pbuh).

Ya? Well, so does the State of Israel.

They'll do anything for a fast buck Partner up with the most sinister organizations on Earth. LARP as Catholics for the day. LARP as Muslims. Maybe they'll even invest in the Satanic Temple to show how open minded they are.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/global/2023/10/9/23907606/byu-jerusalem-center-students-safe-war-declared-israel-gaza

Good tbing BYU Jerusalem is okay, right?

BYU Jerusalem Center students safe as war is declared in Israel
Saturday’s Hamas attack was not targeted at Jerusalem, but BYU Jerusalem Center leaders have contingency plans in place to keep students safe

If the church owns defense stocks, funding Hamas was good for business. Now they just need a list of the dead on both sides for temple work.

bradley Wrote:
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> If the church owns defense stocks, funding Hamas
> was good for business. Now they just need a list
> of the dead on both sides for temple work.

I bet they have Israeli investments too. Probably based in the West Bank.

I wonder if this was Elder Kearon's decision. He loves the Middle East.

No, it was not.

In fact, the Q15 were almost certainly unaware of it. As summer explained, the church subcontracts the management of its money to investment professionals--and they invest almost exclusively algorithmically. So no apostle would know that 0.0001% of the church's money was invested in a Turkish company that had was involved with another company that was involved with Hamas.

Anyone who has a managed pension fund or health insurance provided by a large company likewise has indirect investments in Hamas, IS, Russia, China, and North Korea.

Bruno's novel solution to the Hummus problem:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1SvETSZlvo&pp=ygUTYnJ1bm8gaHVtbXVzIHNjZW5lIA%3D%3D

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2023/12/24/letter-has-lds-church-divested/

Letter: Has the LDS Church divested itself from an investment linked to the ‘Hamas money machine’? [EXTRACTS]

A recent New York Times article — titled “Israel found the Hamas money machine years ago. Nobody turned it off.” — depicts how Hamas was funded generally and then how the money was used to finance its operations. The article concentrates primarily on Turkey’s involvement, but also on many Western investments.

Of particular local interest is the following report: “Foreign investors piled in [in a real estate development firm named Trend GYO, a company found to be at the center of the Hamas portfolio] . . . . In 2019 while Washington sat on the ledgers, American and European banks held more than 3 percent of the company’s publicly traded shares on behalf of clients, Turkish financial records show.”
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Nevertheless, Israeli authorities have now concluded that this influx of money not only helped Hamas prepare for the Oct. 7 attacks, but also gave leaders confidence that they would have the money to rebuild afterward. This opinion was voiced by five Israeli security officials.

It is of particular interest to know who is the church spokesman, and if the LDS Church, while apparently having no knowledge of Hamas ties, has divested itself of this investment, and if so when, and if not, why not.

Gene Fitzgerald, Salt Lake City

Israel found that channel for money in 2007 and Netanyahu let it continue functioning because he wanted to strengthen Hamas relative to the Palestinian Authority. He wanted there two be two weak Palestinian states--Gaza and the West Bank--rather than one strong one.

The chickens have come home to roost. One reason Netanyahu is pushing the war so aggressively is because he worries that if things settle down, Israelis will have time to see where blame lies and reach the obvious conclusion.

“Mowing the grass” is despicable, hubristic and stupid.

He is the ultimate cynic. I can't say more.