Is the WTBTS having cash flow problems?

by JW GoneBad 80 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Nathan Natas

  Years and years ago the WTB&TS made a decision that their target audience would be the dumbed-down ignorant masses of the world, because these are the people most likely to respond to a simplistic message of almost-immediate (just add Armageddon!) salvation.

  They are reaping the fruits of their hardscrabble intellectually salted fields today. Although there are some wealthy JWs, they are a resented minority. Compare to the Mormons, who encourage and provide facilities for advanced education. Faux pas, WATCHTOWER!

  My personal hope is that the WATCHTOWER does not have enough to make it through the long cold winter soon to come and it it ends its days eating its last devoted district servant and dying, choking, with a bone caught in their throat.

  What's for dinner? MEATLOAF!
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  blondie

  No Apologies, each congregation that holds the territory the KH is located in incorporated as a non-profit corporation with 3 elders as trustees (no owners and that congregation does not own the building and property). If the congregation is dissolved, then it reverts to the parent non-profit, the WTS. But the congregation has to end and be divided up amongst other local congregations. Payment of the mortgages does not make the WTS the owner.
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  stapler99

  If the congregation didn't pay the mortgage on the hall, do you know if it would be the local congregation or the WTS who would be liable?
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  blondie

  Am I assuming that you mean in the case the WTS made the loan? Then it would work the same way it would if an individual made the loan or a bank. Whatever legal means that an individual or bank have to recover the loan would take place.
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  stapler99

  Ah, I didn't understand that the loan was made by the WTS. I was wondering if the congregation had a loan from someone else and didn't pay it, whether they would be able to sue the WTS (the parent organization) for it. Or would the local congregation have the full responsibility? It seems to me that this can't be the case, if they maintain the benefits of being able to sell the hall and to get some money for it they must also have the responsibilty of paying for it.
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  No Apologies

  Thanks, Blondie that is my understanding of how it works too, each congregation forms a corporation that would be the owner of the Hall. Then there was the annual corporate meeting (usually held after the school and service meeting) where all baptised members of the congregation in attendance would all "vote" for whoever they told us to vote for.

  No Apologies
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  factfinder

  A display for debit/credit card donations at the assembly hall? that sounds like begging to me. Everything they have been doing the past 15 or so years indicates they are having money problems. Then after the year 2000: discontinuing personal magazine subscriptions due to increasing postage costs, cutting way back on magazine production, first by making the Awake! a monthly and then seperating the WT into 2 seperate editions with one only for the congregation thus greatly cutting down on magazine production , turning more and more books into perfect-bound soft cover books, now they make nearly every book a paperback, closing branches, downsizing the headquarters facilities, selling presses and binding equipment, etc.

  Everything indicates that donations have been dropping off sharply.
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  Scott77

  My question is: Is there a way one can obtain annual financial report of the Watchtower? I know some non profit organisations registered as such, often publish their annual financial report showing how they spend their money during the year.

  Scott77
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  JW GoneBad

  No Apologies:

  'I think their real M.O. is when a Hall is close to being paid off, telling the congregation its time for either a new Hall or an expensive remodel project. I have seen this happen in almost every Hall I have attended.'

  This is taking place in our next of the woods. Our hall is paid off. Neighboring halls are also paid off. Their is supposedly a need for a new hall. So who do they hit on to flip the bill for the new hall?

  Family heads of each congregation (in the Kingdom Halls that are paid off) are asked to write on a slip (anonymously) how much they can afford to pay monthly for the new hall (which they will never use) while the WTBTS headquarters holds onto the pink slips of the already paid for Kingdom halls. Never a reprieve for the JW families.

  The rich keep getting richer off the R & F. Its' a racket!

  That is why I was taken back by this new scheme of theirs of accepting donations via debit & credit card charges. It appeared to me as though we had vendors who set-up shop in the lobby of the assembly hall.

  What were they selling? Religion!!! And the GB have the nerve to call 'Christendom' greedy.

  WTBTS has become (as someone put it)a prophet profit making business. Ironically, a speaker, in one of his parts read Proverbs 22:7 ....'The rich is the one that rules over those of little means, and the borrower is servant to the man doing the lending.'

  Who really are the blind leading the blind? Hmmm!

  In many respects the WTBTS shows itself not only of being greedy but also hard up for cash!
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  SlipnSlide

  Once thing for certain, I'm not "donating" anymore of my hard earned dollars to a corporation that has no respect for women. Women account for the majority of the rank and file members, so if they don't respect me, they don't respect my money and it stays in my pocket. I went to the meeting and I honestly thought everyone was asleep cuz they were so "dead". It was the same old info spewed from the podium and there was hardly a hand in the air when the poor brother conducting the book study had to answer the question himself. I looked around and there was no joy evident and out of the whole congregation, there were maybe 4 that actually sang while the music played. The bookstudy lesson regarding the role of elders left a bad taste in my mouth. It gave praises to "elders" and said that we should respect them and their position as the older men of the congregation because they have "many" responsibilities and most have families. Blah, blah, blah. What elders do you know are so deserving?