Posts by JeffT

38

Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption

by JHK in

millions of documents show heads of state, criminals and celebrities using secret hideaways in tax havens... [...].

what about watchtower society's holy money?.

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html?goal=0_ffd1d0160d-4ddea55429-100339089&mc_cid=4ddea55429&mc_eid=bfe834e473.

JeffT

Lawsuit losses do not warrant trying to hide money in off shore accounts. The potential losses from lawsuits measure in millions. The WTBS has assets measured in billions. Unless they get much bigger, lawsuit payouts are not going to be that big a problem. Attempting to hide assets from the courts is a federal felony. I used to work for some one who tried it and ended up in prison for that AND tax fraud.

You launder money when you have it via criminal activity. I have yet to see that the WTBS has done anything illegal.

38

Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption

by JHK in

millions of documents show heads of state, criminals and celebrities using secret hideaways in tax havens... [...].

what about watchtower society's holy money?.

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html?goal=0_ffd1d0160d-4ddea55429-100339089&mc_cid=4ddea55429&mc_eid=bfe834e473.

JeffT

Why would the WTBS bother with offshore accounts? They already have tax exempt status. The R&F don't seem to care where the money goes. I don't see who they need to hide it from.

15

A blog post on my 65th birthday

by JeffT in

jw
friends

putting this out there for everybody.

.

http://pathologicallyintellectual.blogspot.com/.

JeffT

Putting this out there for everybody.

http://pathologicallyintellectual.blogspot.com/

8

JW-Facts--Here is that Circuit Assembly Financial Report Form you wanted!

by Atlantis in

our "spy" was able to get in and get out undetected.

we thank him/her for their kindness and courage.

remarks were made that the assembly this person attended only kept the women in their place.. i remarked to this person that one of these days the watchtower is going to "put down" the wrong woman who is going to clean their clock with a massive discrimination lawsuit!.

JeffT

Mephis, thanks I missed that, as I said I was headed for work. So what happens if the brother authorized to transfer funds doesn't like the request, or thinks it is for a frivolous purpose? My inner accountant is not liking the idea of transferring money between entities like this (among other things). I will probably write more on this tomorrow. The lack of transparency is stunning.

29

Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?

by Terry in

i have kept on asking myself why the jw's put targets on themselves by constant diddling with their own doctrines?

why not leave it alone?.

mainstream christianity has fixed teachings.

JeffT

The WTBS has two fundamental problems in this.

1) they have no standards for hermeneutics and exegesis, that is the methodology of used to understand a text and the resulting interpretations. These would include careful analysis of who wrote a particular text, who he was directing his comments to, as well as close critical textual examination of a text. The WTBS runs into trouble because it doesn't apply any of this to any text, everything is taken as literally true and subject to their understanding of what that means. Since they have no standard method for explaining a verse, they can just shoot from the hip all the time.

2) A classic method of control is to constantly move the goals, purposes etc of whoever you're trying to manipulate. I've worked for a couple of control-freak bosses and it is very much like have the GB as your boss. You have to do it exactly right, or you'll get in trouble, but what is "exactly right" changes constantly. You're lucky if you get to find out in advance what that is.

edited to add: I spent some years as a member of a "mainstream" church. That church and a majority of other protestant denominations all agree on what they consider major doctrines: salvation by faith, the divinity of Jesus, Baptism, regular communion etc. All of minor points are left to the individual to decide for himself, and are not considered major points for argument. Most of the differences between churches involve worship style and governance, not doctrine.

The WTBS regards individual thinking as intolerable.

8

JW-Facts--Here is that Circuit Assembly Financial Report Form you wanted!

by Atlantis in

our "spy" was able to get in and get out undetected.

we thank him/her for their kindness and courage.

remarks were made that the assembly this person attended only kept the women in their place.. i remarked to this person that one of these days the watchtower is going to "put down" the wrong woman who is going to clean their clock with a massive discrimination lawsuit!.

JeffT

I'm about to go to work, I hope some one can answer this question, because I really want to look into some accounting issues with these reports.

Here's the question: After the circuit sends excess funds to the branch office to be held on its account there, what does it have to do to get the money back?

19

A New Watchtower trade name: Hudson Valley

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

watchtower and trading business is a never ending combination, now under the new name of hudson valley, selling their building machines online: .

http://used-tools-equipment.com.

JeffT

excuse my ignorance, but when you factor the cost and logistics of housing and feeding 3000 volunteers, along with the purchase of 10's of millions of dollars of equipment, for those who would know how is this more cost effective then having the general contractor do all the work?

It isn't. And that would be before you factor in all the added expense caused by incompetent project management. The biggest thing the general contractor brings to the work site is the knowledge of how to do the job. A bad GC can cost you a fortune. Example: on one of the projects I worked on (an apartment building) the floors were installed before the plumbing, which means the plumber had to rip out the floors to install the plumbing. The floors then needed to be replaced. In our case the GC ate the cost (and probably watched his profit disappear).

I have no doubt (and there have been some reports) that this kind of thing happened a lot a Warwick.

19

A New Watchtower trade name: Hudson Valley

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

watchtower and trading business is a never ending combination, now under the new name of hudson valley, selling their building machines online: .

http://used-tools-equipment.com.

JeffT

As I understand it, they were acting as their own general contractor on the Warwick project. (This, in my opinion as a former real estate developer is a bad idea but they didn't ask me). So they need a lot of tools and equipment for a long time. Renting the stuff you need for a project that size doesn't make sense, you need to much of it for too long a time. So they bought it, they shouldn't have trouble reselling it to recover some cost.

I'm trying to work out in my head if they could keep some of it and rent it out to congregations building new halls. It might make sense, but they'd have to truck it all over the country, building the cost of that into the rental rate may make it so expensive that even Elder Dumbjon could figure out he was paying too much.

166

2nd amendment right ... where should it end?

by Simon in

one thing i like to do to test a theory is to take things to extremes or to their logical conclusion to see if the premises still hold.

very often, a claim that seems to make sense at a superficial level falls apart when you start to stretch it a little.. so let's play a game.. suppose the 2nd amendment is valid, that some "well regulated militia" really is necessary to hold the government to account.. obviously when this was drafted the government had access to the weapons of it's day which would be muskets!

so muskets all round.

JeffT

Article I section 8 (powers of Congress)

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Under this authority the Militia Act of 1903 created the Reserve Militia which consists of all able bodied men between the ages of 17 and 45; and the Organized Militia, which are all the state militias. Per RCW 38.04.030 I'm a member of the Washington State Militia even though I'm about to turn 65, Our unorganized militia has no upper age limit (and no reference to gender :) )

Edited to add: the English laws are relevant because most of the legal systems and laws set up in the colonial states were based on English law, since that's what we'd been living under.

166

2nd amendment right ... where should it end?

by Simon in

one thing i like to do to test a theory is to take things to extremes or to their logical conclusion to see if the premises still hold.

very often, a claim that seems to make sense at a superficial level falls apart when you start to stretch it a little.. so let's play a game.. suppose the 2nd amendment is valid, that some "well regulated militia" really is necessary to hold the government to account.. obviously when this was drafted the government had access to the weapons of it's day which would be muskets!

so muskets all round.

JeffT

Who exactly should determine what it should be now *now*? Isn't that the supreme court?

No.

I think Berengaria posted a very interesting and comprehensive history to it.

Interesting yes, comprehensive no. It discusses one aspect of the militia history in the United States, but ignores (among other things) the history of the militia in English Common Law, which was very familiar to the framers of the Constitution.