Is The Borg Losing Money Drastically Or What??? (page 2)

JWdaughter

Paper and ink prices have gone up DRAMATICALLY in the last year. During our company meeting today(a newspaper) we learned that the production costs just for the paper has gone up 30% or so(?) in the last year, something to do with the exchange rate with canada. Supposedly the paper producer is trying to raise prices enough to not be in the hole and they still are in the hole. . .Ink prices are way up also.

At least the WT doesn't have any unions!

sacolton

Greed ... it is a bitch!

WTWizard

Perhaps if they created value, people would be willing to pay money.

That reminds me of the music industry. When they put out good music, people were willing to go to the record store and buy the records or CDs. And that supported the artists, despite home taping and duplicating equipment. But once they started putting out cookie-cutter material, people are now downloading. They download a song off LimeWire, listen to it, and decide that it is not worth buying. So the labels end up losing money.

That also applies to the Washtowel magazines. People would be willing to donate to an organization that was giving good advice. We see that in the self-help books--people download free samples, try it, it works, and they buy the whole course or book. If, like the Washtowels, they are crap, they will try the free samples and find that they are crap (or even worse, counterproductive) and not donate another penny.

mustang

I gotta ask myself . . . When's the last time I heard of a company that quit charging for it's product and made more money . . . ?

The GB made a serious mistake in going to the donation system instead of having a set price for the literature.

Wrong strategy? Compare this:

Scott led his church in handling the changes wrought by California into taxing churches by forming Delores Press, a TAX-PAYING subsidiary publisher. Pay the tax & be done with it!!! was the approach he took. Delores Press books are perhaps considered expensive, but some of what they publish are reproductions of early writings and manuscripts. These books are invaluable for research and reference and are not available elsewhere. Much of this work is the result of Scott's development of an extensive library/museum of Bible writings.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/9/85796/1.ashx

PS: Both of these outfits are having problems; but there IS more than one way to do something.

Mustang

yknot

Ditto JWdaughter....

Printed media worldwide is suffering. Newspaper and magazine circulations are down across the board.

A few more years of this & higher education with larger donations is gonna start looking pretty damn good, hopefully it will be too late then.

That said many countries and corporations have fell victim to this mentality risking low income & intelligence hoping that quanity will supercede quality. When a Walmart nation can no longer afford to shop at Walmart it begins to implode. Capital gain is driven by the a thriving economy, a thriving economy is driven by products and innovation demands, which are usually driven by an individual desire to succeed and create, creation and invention are usually the result of need, and a curious (and often educated) mind.

cognac

Paper and ink prices have gone up DRAMATICALLY in the last year. During our company meeting today(a newspaper) we learned that the production costs just for the paper has gone up 30% or so(?) in the last year, something to do with the exchange rate with canada. Supposedly the paper producer is trying to raise prices enough to not be in the hole and they still are in the hole. . .Ink prices are way up also.

Good. I hope they crumble. I'm sick and tired of the borg.

Tired of the Hypocrisy

I was never a real regular giver. And when I did it was never much. My dad had a great way of putting things. He said that Jehovah was their sole support and what they needed He would provide.

OnTheWayOut

Look at WTS purely as a corporation.

Their product has cheapened- soft covers on all the books.
Their main sales item has reduced production to reflect either
a reduction in sales or a lack of profit on them- too much supply
of a donation-only product.
Even when their workers are paid only room-and-board and a
slight salary, they don't manage to afford them. Layoffs of "volunteers"
indicates a serious money-management problem.

Even the reduction in time of the Congregation Book Studies can be
seen as a reduction in costs. Bethelites that are moved out to
Patterson and Wallkill make one less trip to a faraway book study
meeting and it saves gas for WTS. If they cover books at a slower
pace, then the members don't go through new literature so fast. If they
are not donating enough, that's a savings to the corporation.

Conventions must still be profitable, as well as Assemblies. If they were
not profitable, they would cancel them in a heartbeat. But I wouldn't be
surprised if they hope to save costs and keep the same profits by dropping
Fridays from the DC. It wasn't announced this year, but I think it would be
saved as a surprise. It may not happen for a few years because there is a
formula for control vs. profit. You can't reduce too much meeting time and
keep control of the members.

The talk on JWD of ditching C.O.'s could be true. That would be a huge
indicator that donations are way down. That's changing a bunch of their
control vs. profit rules and scrambling for recovery.

Honesty

There has been about 5 trillion talks on donating money. Never heard so many talks on this before... They have said in talks a few times that when the society charged per mag or whatever, the society got a lot more in donations then they do now and the cost in production has gone up.
Anyone have any feedback on this? cognac

The Gubnin' Buddy had better get on their knees and ask their demon god to help their asses out.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

There has been about 5 trillion talks on donating money.

Cognac, I've told you 100 quadrillion times DON'T EXAGGERATE!!

While still in Bethhell, I knew that donations were down even before 9/11 when the US economy was slowing. That was when they sold the Furman building and bought big new presses for some of the branches. Problem is, Bethel knows how to spend money, but they're not good at really saving money. Having served there, it's surprising how very wasteful they are with donated funds. Oftentimes, their efforts to save money on inexperienced labor and bad decisions resulted in huge expenses later down the road on repairs.

What is visible to the congregations is that to save money, they go to paperbacks, cheaper covers, layoff 'volunteers', and tell the congregations how they're cutting costs. Word spreads of how they're selling Brooklyn real estate for megabucks. "Great, now they don't need as much," think the R&F. So donations stagnate. The WT pleads for more money, but the friends keep thinking, "How glad we are to be in the 'spiritual paradise(tm)' where Hojovah pays the bills and the litteratrash is free!"

Even after selling property and ditching Bethelites, I think their expenses are too high for their income. But since they are secretive and don't account for their money, we can't say for certain. While the bOrg demands accounting, reports, and audits of the congregations, they report nothing of headquarter or branch accounts. Of course, if they had nothing to hide, they would be open and honest. But since the days of Rutherford with his mansion, Cadillacs, booze, and women, they stopped being a Bible Students study group and became 'an organization', a 'religion', and made sure to take advantage of any laws to keep their books secret.

Here's hoping they go broke next year

B the X

Is The Borg Losing Money Drastically Or What???

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