Posts by darkspilver

38

If the WT is a "money making machine"...who gets the money?

by NikL in

jw
friends

i've seen claims over the years that wt is in the real estate, book publishing business and is a for profit enterprise at it's core.. can those of you that believe this to be the case tell me who benefits from all this wealth?.

the governing body lives in relatively humble conditions no?.

i've been curious about this for a while.

darkspilver

Hi OrphanCrow

the largest landlord in Brooklyn Heights and vicinity—the nonprofit Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the Witnesses' business arm...

Yes, I bet they were, no doubt about it - but I thought they were not actually renting out any of the properties externally? Did they get any rental income? Well I suppose apart the hotel rooms to bethel vistors?

Instead, even with the tax breaks, they would have had 'running or operating costs' to pay - even if ultimately they benefited from a one-time sizable capital gain when sold.

18

Santa Ana, Calif. News Report: Jehovah's Witness molested 4-5 girls

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6ftvig9b8.

kacey montoya for channel 5.

darkspilver

Thank you steve2

Hi Barbara, please accept my fullest, unreserved and personal apologies to you for any offense I may have caused. That was, and is, never my intention. Apologies also to you for my admittedly somewhat abrasive tone, I promise you I'll work on it. I also promise, as and when I can, to continue researching.

38

If the WT is a "money making machine"...who gets the money?

by NikL in

jw
friends

i've seen claims over the years that wt is in the real estate, book publishing business and is a for profit enterprise at it's core.. can those of you that believe this to be the case tell me who benefits from all this wealth?.

the governing body lives in relatively humble conditions no?.

i've been curious about this for a while.

darkspilver

I think what problemaddict 2 said is true: There may not be a smoking gun here. But the words from jean-luc picard above are very very true - and can perhaps be summed up as:

overheads

I think people severely underestimate the cost of overheads - particulary when it's 'voluntary' because people equate that with 'free' but that's far far from the truth.

WT is a huge unwieldy organisation with so many people on it's effective 'payroll'. It all adds up - yes, even possible that more money is going out then coming in even

In economic terms - it's not the building that costs the money - it's the staffing of the building that costs, big time.

Even volunteers need food, shelter, warmth, monthly allowance and so forth - week-in week-out.

There's 26,011 Bethelites - at US$500-per-month - that's US$150million-a-year

Plus remember all the 'small' allowances WT pays out to special pioneers, missionaries, and so forth, it all adds up.

And the regular, predictable, literature income stream is drying up - that's why WT is goading congregations to make monthly congregational resolutions to donate directly to WT - they are trying to get back that regular, predictable, income stream that's missing. They realise they can't rely on the unpredictability of individual rank and file members donating to the WWW themselves each month! It doesn't work!

I think this also explains the fairly sudden, and ruthless, cutting back and downsizing on people, while still doing some major building works in upstate New York and UK's Essex.

BTW I thought this was interesting background, even though it's a bit old:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-much-your-company-pays-to-rent-office-space-2015-05-27

47

AND STILL NO RELEASE OF THE 2017 JW YEARBOOK

by steve2 in

here we are on the cusp of the new year, and the 2017 yearbook of jws has still not been released.

jw.org continues to feature the 2016 yearbook in its list of main publications.

in previous years, the upcoming yearbook's annual report on jws was released in november for the january 1st then the feb 1st watchtower, then earlier in december when it was only featured in the yearbook, then more recently with a couple of days of december 25th.

darkspilver

Thanks for those figures Darkspilver, even that line of thinking is not working out for them.

Yes, and as OrphanCrow highlighted, the number is a finite one anyway - not a proportional one, thus WT's argument here is really a strawman one, and one that isn't even working out for them now. Crazy.

That's why I did that quick number crunch - to prove the point.

Besides, as Dreamerdude also highlights, even if you do believe the 144,000 literal figure - if you add the first century christians who the WT view as all being of the 'annointed', along with the modern day 'annointed' from the 1920s and 1930s and the current day - you can kinda quite easily get to more than the 144,000 anyway. Crazy.

And then you get WT's most recent (?) "mental or emotional imbalance" reasoning - but that kinda poses questions regarding the Governing Body ver 2.0 themselves. GB ver 1.0 were all old-skool - the rank and file could easily accept them as 'annointed', but ver 2.0? Mark Sanderson? It must be getting harder and harder, even for the hard-core true believers....

Watchtower 15 August, page 22
A number of factors—including past religious beliefs or even mental or emotional imbalance—might cause some to assume mistakenly that they have the heavenly calling.

47

AND STILL NO RELEASE OF THE 2017 JW YEARBOOK

by steve2 in

here we are on the cusp of the new year, and the 2017 yearbook of jws has still not been released.

jw.org continues to feature the 2016 yearbook in its list of main publications.

in previous years, the upcoming yearbook's annual report on jws was released in november for the january 1st then the feb 1st watchtower, then earlier in december when it was only featured in the yearbook, then more recently with a couple of days of december 25th.

darkspilver

haha, seriously, please do! Crossing the t's and dotting the i's is important.

47

AND STILL NO RELEASE OF THE 2017 JW YEARBOOK

by steve2 in

here we are on the cusp of the new year, and the 2017 yearbook of jws has still not been released.

jw.org continues to feature the 2016 yearbook in its list of main publications.

in previous years, the upcoming yearbook's annual report on jws was released in november for the january 1st then the feb 1st watchtower, then earlier in december when it was only featured in the yearbook, then more recently with a couple of days of december 25th.

darkspilver

Hey steve2!

Oh, I did not know there was a direct reference to this. Yet, please note it's from over 20 years ago - it acknowledges a "slight" increase.

Yeah, exactly, which makes it even more embarrassing considering the recent larger increases!!!

Did you also note one of the lines of reasoning that the WT took back then?

The most recent published report is for the year 1995, and it shows 28 more partakers than in the preceding year though the ratio of partakers to those attending did actually drop.
Link to scans

Interesting? WT picks up on the decreasing ratio, or proportion of partakers - I think comparing that ratio to average publishers would be 'more accurate' though?

So, I did some quick basic number crunching - and I mean quick, I've not double-checked my maths, apologies for any errors.

I'll let you make your own observations, I just thought it was interesting.

2015
Average 7,987,279 = 1-in-526 partook
Attendance: 19,862,783 = 1-in-1,308
Partakers: 15,177

2014
Average: 7,867,958 = 1-in-557
Partakers: 14,121

2010
Average: 7,224,930 = 1-in-644
Partakers: 11,202

2000
Average: 5,783,003 = 1-in-667
Partakers: 8,661

1995
Average: 4,950,344 = 1-in-572
Attendance: 13,147,201 = 1-in-1,520
Partakers: 8,645

1994
Average: 4,695,111 = 1-in-544
Attendance: 12,288,917 = 1-in-1,426
Partakers: 8,617

1990
Average: 3,846,311 = 1-in-433
Partakers: 8,869

1980
Average: 2,175,403 = 1-in-227
Partakers: 9,564

1970
Average: 1,384,782 = 1-in-131
Partakers: 10,526

18

Santa Ana, Calif. News Report: Jehovah's Witness molested 4-5 girls

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6ftvig9b8.

kacey montoya for channel 5.

darkspilver

'Old' news can be more important than 'new' news.

'Old' news can expose a devastating pattern and culture of behaviour over a length of time.

It can expose the depth of that behaviour across both time and countries, be it in America, Britain, Spain, Australia...

Ah, Australia! As a community we praised Angus Stewart for his high calibre, incisive, knowledgeable and often devastating cross-examination of witnesses in his role as Senior Counsel Assisting the Australian Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

Guess what? For what we say and what we post to be effective - and to work - we need to stand up to the same kind of cross-examination.

It was unfortunate that Barbara said "after the link was sent to me I looked around to find if the information was recent, but couldn't find anything." – particularly when I simply popped the post title she used into google and (at the time) the first/top results gave me the answer and original video - 'old' news is still good, if we know it's old news.

Barbara has done much - more than almost anybody else - to expose the mishandling of pedophilia with the JW's - not just recently, but over many years too. We - and I - have much to thank her for. I'm sure she knows we can't just be 90% accurate, or 99%, or even 100% accurate - we need to be 110% accurate - and by working together on this forum we can, if we want to, make sure we are 110% accurate.

Simon: Here's a hint: fuck off.

The principle is that there is a moral obligation to expose the JW's mishandling of pedophilia.

This is bigger than me. It is bigger than you.

But we can only succeed if what we say and post can hold up to thorough cross-examination. I would like to think that, each time I post, I ask myself: 'what would Angus Stewart pick up on and question about what I've written/posted?'

Yes, the easy option would indeed be to - 'fuck off' - but…. but I believe there is a moral obligation at stake. I can't take that easy option and just shut up. This is too big, too important. Sorry.

Finally, by private message, I have been kindly reminded that Barbara is not as young as she once was. I therefore realise that I should perhaps go a bit easier in future - and I apologise that I haven't done so before. My desire for 110% accuracy sometimes gets in the way, sorry.

47

AND STILL NO RELEASE OF THE 2017 JW YEARBOOK

by steve2 in

here we are on the cusp of the new year, and the 2017 yearbook of jws has still not been released.

jw.org continues to feature the 2016 yearbook in its list of main publications.

in previous years, the upcoming yearbook's annual report on jws was released in november for the january 1st then the feb 1st watchtower, then earlier in december when it was only featured in the yearbook, then more recently with a couple of days of december 25th.

darkspilver

Hey steve2

Sure, Jw org comments on the likely "calibre" of those partaking - but (and this is the point I made) the organization has never once acknowledged the number of partakers had been increasing over several consecutive years. Up, up and up.
Yes, a sly dig here or there questioning some partakers - but never a direct reference to their increasing number.

Hmm, a bit of post-truth again I think?

Embrassingingly the WT has.

Watchtower 1 August 1996

Questions From Readers: The reports for some years show that the number partaking of the Memorial emblems increased slightly. Does this suggest that many new ones are being anointed with holy spirit?
The most recent published report is for the year 1995, and it shows 28 more partakers than in the preceding year.
Link to scans

18

Santa Ana, Calif. News Report: Jehovah's Witness molested 4-5 girls

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6ftvig9b8.

kacey montoya for channel 5.

darkspilver

Hi AndersonsInfo!

Thank for posting the date of the news report, darkspilver. I appreciate your scrutiny to make sure the information that I post is accurate, relevant and current. Nothing worse than old news!

Rather than being an exampe of confirmation bias, I think this more an example of post-truth - it's not fake news, sadly the news report is true, but some 14 months old. But the way it was presented here, effectively makes it 'post-truth'.

After the link was sent to me I looked around to find if the information was recent, but couldn't find anything.

I find that extremely hard to believe. Where did you look?

I simply copy and pasted the thread title YOU used, into Google and up popped, oh yes, the VERY FIRST result to the page I linked to above, you might get slightly different results, but I'm sure you get the point

That actually means I located the original news item / video footage in LESS TIME than it took you to post it!!

And then there's these (you actually commented on the first thread, twice)

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/453440001/jehovahs-witnesses-girls-molested-police-say-santa-ana-man-held

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/446920004/sexual-assault-believe-jw-member-santa-ana-calif

Have you told the person who sent you link about the original date yet?

Please, if you have the time, darkspilver, maybe you could locate an update about this case. I'd sure like to know the outcome.

No, it's your thread, so I'll let you follow it up and update us please.

But I'll help you, a bit....

I notice the the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website at http://inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov shows an inmate, with the same first, middle and last name who was admitted on 24 November 2015, but is listed as being 46, which doesn't match up with the news reports??

(in case anyone is wondering, we've briefly PM'ed each other previously, and I've said "I call a spade-a-spade" - and therefore to please not take what I say personally)

18

Santa Ana, Calif. News Report: Jehovah's Witness molested 4-5 girls

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6ftvig9b8.

kacey montoya for channel 5.

darkspilver

And?.... Update?

This news video report is from 8 September 2015

http://ktla.com/2015/09/08/santa-ana-man-charged-with-molesting-4-children-of-fellow-church-members/

The news report states that, when one of the young victims told a family member what happened, they informed the police.