Posts by slimboyfat

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

You are correct that SDAs spend money on all sorts of things JWs don’t spend money on such as schools and hospitals.

On the other hand the vast majority of SDA membership and institutions are in third world countries.

Plus a church can only spend what it receives. The SDA church receives on average $178 from each of its members. (20 million members)

Indications from the paperwork in the UK and Australia are that JWs in those countries contribute in the region of £200 to £300 per year. If we assume that JWs on average contribute £200 a year that comes to £1.6 billion which must be pretty close to $2 billion dollars.

And since $2 billion is a reasonable ballpark estimate of Watchtower income it must also be reasonable estimate of their expenditure, or worse, since “more money is going out than coming in”.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

Sir82 what sort of estimate would you put on the cost of heating, air conditioning, and structural maintenance of 80 branches and many other fascilities worldwide?

How much does it cost to care for very elderly bethelites that are not abandoned in old age? It’s not difficult to imagine that tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent treating Ted Jaracz’s heart disease for example. And all the wives, and branch members and so on, who cannot easily be abandoned. Health care must be a huge cost.

How much does it cost to employ and in some cases train (Judag Ben Schroeder) lawyers and other professionals?

And how much does it cost to produce their videos and websites and apps and all their digital output?

And how much is paid out in compensation of various sorts.

And let’s be blunt, how much is simply wasted or sponged off in various crony arrangements with suppliers and consultants and that we will never hear about but inevitably attach themselves to an organisation that is as huge and cycles as much cash as Watchtower does.

I have no idea how to even begin to estimate these and other costs. But added to your $600 million for personnel, it certainly adds up. If it doesn’t reach $2 billion it still puts the $1 billion from the sale of Brooklyn properties into perspective.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

We can’t know the details for sure, but I think many of your figures are gross underestimates. For example:

Although some bethelites are abandoned in middle age, there are a considerable number of very elderly bethelites whose health care costs are probably extremely expensive in the last few months or years of their life. All the GB and their wives and branch committees and so on when they suffer from cancer, stroke, heart failure and everything else.

Maintining, heating and air conditioning such huge fascitlies in dozens of branches is likely to be a huge cost. Maintaining property is a huge expense.

And I think we may tend to underestimate the amount that Watchtower is spending in legal fees and compensation payouts already. Worldwide this alone may amount to tens of millions annually.

Plus travel costs for the GB and their entourage must be a considerable expense. And all the endless gstherings of COs, elders, branch members, technical staff, lawyers and goodness knows what else.

And paper is more expensive and they still need to print WT study magazines and a few other essential items.

And there are probably lots of other costs we don’t even imagine.

The other crucial point I make is that the idea that a religious organisation of this size and spread incurs costs in the region of $2 billion dollars is entirely plausible when you compare Watchtower with the Seventh Day Adventists. In fact they spend more than $2 billion dollars annually despite the fact that their membership is much more weighted toward third world countries than JWs.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

The $200 million figure in the yearbook is only for travelling overseers, missionaries and special pioneers. The wording is very clear.

The cost of stipend, food, shelter, health, travel and other costs of the 20,000 bethelites worldwide (down from nearly 30,000) is in addition to the $200 million.

It is very easy to see how Watchtower spends in the region of $2 billion a year (and as I mentioned, is a smaller spend that the Seventh Day Adventist Church, for example) but if you don’t appreciate that then I guess that goes some way to explaining why many think that $1 billion from the sale of Brooklyn properties is some sort of everlasting life saver.

And don’t forget the move to Warwick might have been “cheap” but it wasn’t free either, ditto Chelmsford. Plus we are not even sure that Watchtower didn’t take out loans against the value of their assets at any point. So do we even know for sure they realised the full amount from the sales they made? Even if they realised the full amount, it is not as large in relation to their running costs as some imagine.

It clearly wasn’t, otherwise why did they cancel the yearbooks start selling KHs and all the rest of the cutbacks.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

The $200 million figure in the yearbook is only for “travelling overseers, missionaries and special pioneers”. The cost of keeping 20,000 bethelites and maintaining 80 branches is in addition to the $200 million figure. And then there are publications, digital output, legal fees and other costs on top of that.

Plus another reason for saying Watchtower spends around $2 billion a year is that Lett’s comments indicate revenue of around $2 billion and Lett on another ocassion said there is “more money going out than coming in”. Therefore if revenue is around $2 billion then expenditure is logically at least $2 billion.

I would add that these figures are rendered entirely plausible by a close scrutiny of the figures for the Seventh Day Adventist church which are freely available. They raise and spend even more than JWs. On the one hand that’s suprising because they are from poorer countries and don’t produce as much literature. On the other hand they tithe their members and build school and hospitals and have paid clergy.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

The Sears comparison is excellent Sigfrid, exactly what is happening, they are selling off assets to buy time but their structural deficit remains and is catching up with them.

The sale of Brooklyn property only provided a very short respite. Even if we assume they got 2 billion dollars from the sales (probably closer to 1 billion) and it only cost 500 million to relocate to Warwick. That leaves 1.5 billion. If their annual running costs are around 2 billion (as indicated by various comments by Lett, possibly higher) then that means the sale of Brooklyn properties would cover running costs for less than one year.

44

PROOF That Trump Colluded With Russia

by minimus in

jw
friends

is there any “proof” yet??

?.

slimboyfat

You seem to have missed the seamless transition from “it is outrageous to suggest we colluded with the Russians” to “what’s on earth is wrong with colluding with the Russians?”

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the biggest publishing company the world has ever seen. It would be interesting to research the figures on that.

89

why the watchtower is so short of money

by pepperheart in

the watchtower is so short of money because they have to pay for all the upkeep of so many branch offices around the world.because so many of the branch offices are in very poor countries and they are not balancing the budgets.

slimboyfat

They are not purely a publishing company because they are also a relgion, to that extent you are correct. However, they relied on publishing and the revenue it provided more than any other religion I can think of. They even called their members “publishers”! Pioneers were premier literature distrIbutors who obtained literature at discounted rates. The whole purpose and drive of the organisation was to print and distribute more and more literature in more and more branches.

The message was incredibly important too, you are correct about that. And it’s certainly a testimony to the loyalty of their members that the organisation has been able to continue to function for the best part of quarter of a century after their primary source of revenue came to a juddering halt. But the lack of revenue from publishing has clearly taken its toll. First came the paperbacks to replace hardbacks, then the calendars stopped, and the bound volumes, and so on and so on, until the yearbooks were dropped and the magazines decimated.

For over a century Watchtower boasted that they never take collections and their members are not tithed - they didn’t need to, they had the luxury of their publishing empire as their source of income. Now that has dried up they are relying purely on donations, and despite all the cutbacks and sale of assets, it’s still not enough to dig them out of the financial hole they are in.

30

Little Gems From the November 2018 Study Watchtower

by The Fall Guy in

quickly glanced through it and noticed these bits of "food at the proper time.

i'll leave the lap-dancing comment on page 25, par.

12 and the "how to give us more money" item on pages 28,29,30,31,32 for others to pick up on... page 16, par.

slimboyfat

I don’t know that putting gay porn and illegal porn on a level is “to their credit”. Plus the letter didn’t mention anything about informing the police.