So I recently attended a few meetings in the last 30 days. I've not been in over a decade. As posted in an earlier topic, I still have a few family members in. I was visiting family members and during vacation went to a few meetings.
At one Sunday public talk the visiting Elder was talking about the importance of attending every meeting. He stated that important communication could be delivered from the Governing Body BEFORE the Great Tribulation occurs. This was the same message I heard over and over again in the 80's and 90's. Often time it would be followed up with examples in the bible of those who lost their lives for not following direction. On other occassions the Talks would speak of how perhaps special direction of hiding will be given and we may miss out because of not attending meetings.
I never gave it much thought even in my youth. Even before I learned TTAT, the scared tactics didn't work on me. I just thought these talks were used to get meeting attendance up. However, now I think this could be used as a tool to "cash in". Perhaps, this topic has been spoke of in the past and I'm just coming to the same conclusion many of you already had. But think about this, if the Governing Body wanted to "cash in" they could send the direction to sell off all real estate and collect tax free.
The most valuable asset the GB has is real estate. This is true with most traditional companies. Think McDondalds is in the burger business? Nope they are in the commercial real estate business. Poorly run companies such as Sears and Kmart are able to last decades, because of the selling off of real estate, while the top managers pocket the money.
I'm not stating the current GB will do this but they do leave the door open for this to happen in the future. I'm sure most rank and file JW would not question the direction and in fact would be thrilled that finally the big A is on the way. All it would take is a big event (war, major natural disaster, ect..) for the GB to use.
Or maybe I'm way off.. If this has been talked about just pm a link...