Posts by berrygerry

12

WTS Throws Hail Mary Pass with Major Paradigm Shift

by Socrateswannabe in

let me begin by stating that i have no insider information, this is merely my observation.

i believe that some time ago in watchtower land, somebody at hq posed these questions (probably an outside consultant because i don't think the gb is this hip): .

what would happen if we cut in half the average age of the responsible brothers in the organization?

berrygerry

They can't get back the feeling that the end is so close because all those people that we're born in 1900 are so old. Their becoming less and less relavent to the rank and file and I think it's becoming easier for people to leave as well.

Stumbled on this while looking for info for another thread.

Apr 15, 1996 WT

Article - Increasing Incidence of Bad News
Heading - Escalation in Recent Years
So while it is true that bad news has been a fact of life throughout recorded history, recent decades of this 20th century give evidence that bad news is on the increase, indeed it is escalating rapidly.
Undoubtedly, war news has been the worst kind of bad news our present century has heard. The two greatest wars in history—aptly called World War I and World War II—certainly saw bad news reported on a horrendous scale. But that really has only been a fraction of the bad news this unhappy century has furnished.
Consider just a few headlines selected at random:
September 1, 1923: Quake razes Tokyo—300,000 dead; September 20, 1931: Crisis—Britain devalues the pound; June 25, 1950: North Korea marches into the South; October 26, 1956: Hungarians rise against Soviet rule; November 22, 1963: John Kennedy is shot dead in Dallas; August 21, 1968: Russian tanks roll in to crush the Prague uprising; September 12, 1970: Hijacked jets blown up in the desert; December 25, 1974: Cyclone Tracy flattens Darwin—66 die; April 17, 1975: Cambodia falls to Communist forces; November 18, 1978: Mass suicide in Guyana; October 31, 1984: Mrs. Gandhi shot dead; January 28, 1986: Space shuttle explodes on takeoff; April 26, 1986: Soviet reactor is on fire; October 19, 1987: Bottom falls out of the stock market; March 25, 1989: Alaska hit by oil spill; June 4, 1989: Troops massacre protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Yes, history shows that bad news has always been plentiful, while good news has been comparatively scarce. As bad news has escalated in recent decades, good news has diminished as each year goes by.
Why should this be? Will it always be so?
The next article will address these two questions.

When all of the factors that indicate increase / decrease of civilization are not just observable, but readily searchable, it is impossible to get away with trying to exploit the Bad News Everywhere card as they did in the past.

(That having been said, many of those references in 1996 are very lame by most people's standards - eg. 1931: Crisis—Britain devalues the pound - SERIOUSLY?.)

4

Who is Bob McKeown? (CBC Reporter)

by UnDisfellowshipped in

jw
friends

bob mckeown .

dateline nbc correspondent .

and remember belva ventura, who said benny hinn cast out cancer from her and her son?.

berrygerry

He creeped me out too.

When I was still-in, he was the worst, never watched Fifth Estate as a result.

Watched an old episode a while ago that was about Dubs - he's just not the guy you want on your side. When you look up "snide" in the dictionary, you find him.

12

WTS Throws Hail Mary Pass with Major Paradigm Shift

by Socrateswannabe in

let me begin by stating that i have no insider information, this is merely my observation.

i believe that some time ago in watchtower land, somebody at hq posed these questions (probably an outside consultant because i don't think the gb is this hip): .

what would happen if we cut in half the average age of the responsible brothers in the organization?

berrygerry

They have definitely consulted for a number of changes - whether Dub consultants or outside, they are not just talking to Bethel ladder-climbers.

Their online strategy has been good. However, online success is measured by sales, not by number of languages. So, their website is successful in a sense, but not in reality.

Metro witnessing and Ipad-video showings seem to be ideas from old-timers reminiscing about the good old days of Rutherford. Rutherford's growth came from selling his ideas to a world in, not just a recession, but the Great Depression, followed by WW II. Not only is today's world not Rutherford's world economically, it is a far, far different world socially.

Lastly, as has been posted here many times, the only growth has been in impoverished countries (I note that almost all Youtube comment apologists, who have photos, are black). As noted in the Tanzania post, WT cannot afford any more loss-leaders.

Giving "privileges" to the young as a cult-carrot? Might work for some, but not for a lifetime IMO.

82

Is it worth upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7?

by nicolaou in

jw
friends

i'm running vista home premium on my dell inspiron.

dell custom build to your requirements and i went for 4gb of ram from the start (almost 2 years ago).

i know vista has been much maligned but honestly, i've had no problems with it.

berrygerry

I'm still running the same laptop with Vista

This makes me laugh - I have a desktop plugging away on XP (hope this isn't a jinx - I expect a blue screen of death every morning).

5

Hedge Funds Still Off

by berrygerry in

did the investment guru(s) at bethel pick the wrong fund manager, and hence the big need for cash?.

laggner refers to companies like valeant, sunedison and micron technology as hedge fund hotels, where you check in but cant check out.. i mean they cant get out because they are the market, laggner said.

when they all try to get out, the stock collapses.. valeant is a classic example of a hedge fund hotel in that it has dropped from a high of $260 a share to the $100 range as the stock was obliterated by sellers.

berrygerry

I would have thought that investing in worldly markets would be taking part in the world and therefore an enemy of Jehovah? I guess I was wrong all this time…….

They "hedged" against getting caught as investors with this writing (Oct 8, 2000 Awake):

A Corporate Lottery?
In view of the risks associated with the stock market, is buying stock the same as gambling? A measure of risk is involved in nearly all financial investments. Some people buy real estate, not knowing if the value of a property will increase or decrease over time. Others deposit their money in a bank, trusting that their savings will be secure. While the stock market is more complicated, simply put, one who invests in stocks buys the shares of a company in the hope that the enterprise will prosper and the stocks will increase in value.
Such an investment differs from gambling because the stockholder has purchased part of a company. These shares may be sold to another person or saved in the hope of future growth. This cannot be said of a person who bets money at a casino or on a game of chance. Against the odds, the gambler seeks to predict an uncertain outcome and win the loser or losers’ stakes.
How much risk should an investor accept? That is up to each individual to decide. Of course, it is not prudent to risk more money on an investment than one is willing to lose.

5

Hedge Funds Still Off

by berrygerry in

did the investment guru(s) at bethel pick the wrong fund manager, and hence the big need for cash?.

laggner refers to companies like valeant, sunedison and micron technology as hedge fund hotels, where you check in but cant check out.. i mean they cant get out because they are the market, laggner said.

when they all try to get out, the stock collapses.. valeant is a classic example of a hedge fund hotel in that it has dropped from a high of $260 a share to the $100 range as the stock was obliterated by sellers.

berrygerry

Aug 15, 1992 WT - Have You Counted the Cost?

In our time, inflation, stock-market declines, bank failures, and so forth, have caused the ruin of many who put their trust solely in material riches.

Sound Familiar?

by berrygerry in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u7gxxirxyc

berrygerry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u7GxxirXyc

5

Hedge Funds Still Off

by berrygerry in

did the investment guru(s) at bethel pick the wrong fund manager, and hence the big need for cash?.

laggner refers to companies like valeant, sunedison and micron technology as hedge fund hotels, where you check in but cant check out.. i mean they cant get out because they are the market, laggner said.

when they all try to get out, the stock collapses.. valeant is a classic example of a hedge fund hotel in that it has dropped from a high of $260 a share to the $100 range as the stock was obliterated by sellers.

berrygerry

Did the investment guru(s) at Bethel pick the wrong Fund Manager, and hence the big need for cash?

Laggner refers to companies like Valeant, SunEdison and Micron Technology as hedge fund “hotels,” where you check in but can’t check out.
“I mean they can’t get out because they are the market,” Laggner said. “When they all try to get out, the stock collapses.”
Valeant is a classic example of a hedge fund hotel in that it has dropped from a high of $260 a share to the $100 range as the stock was obliterated by sellers. Shares of SunEdison, which was a popular solar energy play for hedge funds, have dropped from $31 to $6. Micron Technology’s stock price has been chainsawed in half.
It will be interesting to see whether a significant portion of hedge fund clients start withdrawing money from the industry. With some of the most prestigious hedge funds down double digits this year, net cash inflows into the industry slowed a little in the third quarter.

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/columnists/will-deener/20151220-deener-hedge-fund-investors-paying-a-heavy-price.ece

9

They did not even use the library!

by GermanXJW in

jw
friends

mir, a participant in german board http://www.infolink-forum.de reports that he contacted the dag-hammarskjold-library and got the following reply from [email protected].

1. can anybody - following a request and explanation as set out above - use.

the library?

berrygerry

This would probably lend credence to the original post:

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/302011018?q=The+Writing+Department+itself+has+a+comprehensive+library&p=par

One of the large university libraries that our researchers use has some five million books, 58,000 periodicals, 5.4 million microforms, and thousands of electronic databases. The Writing Department also maintains a large archive of clippings, experiences, and historical information that is constantly being updated with material from local sources as well as from our branch offices around the world.

Why would you need to go anywhere else?

6

Traveling Merchants

by berrygerry in

wt teaches that rev 18:11 applies to "big business" mourning the demise of false religion, as they were essentially losing their best customer(s).. the last reference to this concept that i could find is 1993 wt.

also weeping and mourning over her are greedy men of commerce, traveling merchants .

, who became rich from her.. .

berrygerry

Babylon The Great Has Fallen" (false religion) do they still teach that ?

As we speak. (That's what brought up the question in my mind.)

https://www.jw.Borg/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-march-2016/questions-from-readers/

(Delete the B )