New theory on GB or the mysterious people who profit from all the money going to the WT

by EndofMysteries 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  EndofMysteries

  With all the money grabs and shady things going on, you wonder how can they actually believe they are representing God and even believe in God and still be doing these things.

  Then I thought, what if a trend started awhile back, people who gave up everything and got high in the org, but also since they got high up, they were privy and learned things that convinced them it was a lie. Now if they remained believers of God and the bible, they may end up like Ray Franz in that they leave and try to start a fresh life with nothing, a true believer wouldn't want to deceive people seeking God, they would be afraid of God's wrath if they were to do what I'm about to mention...

  Since as is shown on this board many also become athiests, some could have become so while still in and in high ranks. At this point they think of their options, A. Leave, screwed, welfare, older they are the harder to adjust and everybody turns on them or B. Kind of shady but the org and everyone put them in this position, they don't believe in God anyway, and all the followers and the organization will turn on them in a heartbeat with no remorse like they did to Ray Franz so he is going to beat them to it and insure the rest of his/their lives are well taken care of and going to get rich off it.

  So those higher ups who turn athiest opt for option B since they don't believe in any God and since the whole org will turn on them for disagreeing and not believing and leave them with nothing, they will instead keep working their way up, start companies for the things WT already buys, turn it into a big cash cow for themselves. Instead of them getting shunned and left on the street for learning TTATT, they become millionaires and laugh all the way to the bank as the drones who would toss them aside are making them money. They may even have intensions of destroying the organization from the inside out while getting rich, so they support and help push for tighter control and asking for more money, etc, so while they get rich, people will start to wake up too, and perhaps by the time they are done, the whole system crashes.
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  sparky1

  The Governing Body(tm) is made up of "true believers" and this is not a personal financial endeavor for them or anyone in power in this religion. If indeed one of them 'loses his religion' he will probably keep his mouth shut and just 'play the game' so that he can continue with his 'power trip' and have a nice place to live with 3 squares a day. Think of this: If indeed there were some kind of financial 'skimming' or personal pocketing of donations or creating a personal business empire,don't you think that Ray Franz would have exposed this? It is a religion......pure and simple. Controlling Christian Theocratic Fundamentist Cult masquerading as Benign Christian Liberating Religion.
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  EndofMysteries

  They don't have to skim or pocket donations. There have been and probably still are charities whose president or the head honcho also owned the company(s) the charity used to do all of their marketing, etc. I remember one spent over 90% of the money it raised on direct mail marketing and those millions went to a company owned by the president of the charity to provide those services. He wasn't stealing, and technically it was legal. So take that concept an apply it to all of the different vendors the WT uses, and many of the vendors the WT uses are owned by JW's. For those vendors who get millions a year, what transpired for them to be selected and how did they get those companies? Are they a publisher of a congregation and just happened to own the company and the WT started using them? Were they high up in the organization and were given the green light that if he started a company they would send the business to them?
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  StarTrekAngel

  It seems to me that Franz was much more worried about the spiritual concerns rather than the financial. Every JW would argue (and I know they do so to protect their cognitive issues) that is almost required for a religion to be registered as a business and that therefore they have to do what the system allows them to in order to exist. Whatever shady business that Franz may have known about, he may have considered to be part of the org strategy to accomplish what they needed. As far as I can read, Franz did not speak of the GB as evil men. He actually felt they were sincere in their desire but had parted from searching truth in the name of institualization.

  To me, there is no reason to believe that Franz exposed everything he knew. I think he just exposed the parts that he thought were concerning for those seeking biblical truth. Some of us would argue that the financials or any shady transactions are important regarding our spirituality. I am one of them, but that is not the same for everyone. Including Franz
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  sparky1

  Give up the financial conspiracy theories. It might be fun for some people to speculate about such things but you are 'barking up the wrong tree'. The Governing Body (tm) members DO NOT need to start any personal businesses through their business contacts with the Watchtower Society. They get so many 'green handshakes' that it would boggle your mind. They are the 'spiritual directors' of the Jehovahs Witnesses religion. Nothing more and nothing less. I have been a Bethelite, known people that worked in the Treasurers Office and had access to Nathan Knorrs room and George Couchs' (non GB )room at Watchtower Farms .There is NO member of the Governing Body or any corporate officers enriching themselves by means of the Watchtower Society. ALL are 'true believers' period.
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  hoser

  And if you happen to be over 65 in bethel you get to collect old age pension and get to live for free
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  EndofMysteries

  Either I have not explained it well or you guys don't understand how business works. Did the forced remodels and all the changes on KH ownerships, etc, happen back in the 80's? What I'm trying to explain could be recent, since the 90's or even 2,000+. And it could have absolutely nothing to do with anybody on the GB. Everybody will agree the religion has change a LOT the past 10 years and big focus on money, remodels, turning over assets to WT, etc.

  Who supplies all the leased cars for the CO's? Who supplies the building materials? Who does the KH remodels? Who supplies the toilet paper for Bethel? Who owns all of the dozens of companies affiliated with the WT?

  If you think there are not JW's in the mix who would be owners of some of these companies supplying, contracting, etc, and making a LOT of money for being the sole vendor for items of an organization of millions of members, thousands/hundreds of thousands of buildings, etc, then you're quite blind. Or does all the money the WT spends go solely to 'worldly' companies because WT would never do business with a member since they wouldn't have followed their orders on not seeking material pursuits and owning and running a company that is capable of handling the workload needed to handle the volume of business the WT would have for every little thing would be spending most of their time running that company.
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  prologos

  There is certainly "conflict of interest", insider trading, rigged resolutions on the local level. Apartment blocks build by "brothers" adjacent to Kingdom Halls,

  consultation fees, assesments done, supplies bought.

  Perhaps the centralizing of the construction business at bethel rather at the local "Regional" level, is to either control, or profiting centrally from the free labour, the free money.
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  Athanasius

  Being a retired accountant, I feel that your theory has merit, EM. Moreover, I've suspected that this has been going on for a long time. But until we can get a hold of the Watchtower's financial statements, it must remain just a theory. Perhaps that is why the Watchtower refuses to release their financials to the public. If the Watchtower's financial dealings were honest and above board, they would have no reason to withold them from the public.

  While it's not illegal for the Watchtower to pay a JW owned company twice as much for supplies as it would to a non-JW company, if this became public knowledge, the rank and file JWs might think twice about paying $20,000 for the one day use of a building that the R&R JWs built and paid for.
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  Apognophos

  I also think your core idea is plausible but I think you led into it with a couple non sequiturs, so you almost lost me.

  First you talked about money grabs. Well, the Society needs money to run. We simply have no way to know what their expenses are for printing and other "Kingdom activities" so we don't have any basis for saying that arrangements like the new "eternal mortgage" indicate a lack of sincerity. Why can't the leadership be sincere while also looking for new ways to fund their work? Remember that expansion is taking place mostly in poorer countries now, so the average donation per publisher may be dropping significantly even as printing costs have skyrocketed.

  Secondly, it isn't necessary for someone to be a secret non-believer in order to be interested in getting rich from doing business with the Society. I think there probably are some brothers who own companies that are used heavily by the Society. But this doesn't require them to be "secret atheists" or even sincere but hypocritical. Hey, if the Society wants to use their company, then who's to say this is unscrupulous?

  I realize that you're suggesting a more thorough comprehensive bilking of the Society by some higher-ups, and I don't rule out that possibility, but I wanted to separate the most likely part of your idea from the more fantastical part. Personally I don't think that climbing the ladder tends to show someone that the emperor has no clothes. I suppose that has been the case for some idealistic brothers, but when you have a "company man" mindset, you don't get fazed by things that happen as you gradually get promoted through MS, elder, PO, CO, DO....