JeffT

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Posts by JeffT

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  25

  Wedding Anniversary #62

  by smiddy3 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi friends , i thought i would just let you know it`s my wife and i, 62nd wedding anniversary today.. not that we were able to celebrate much as my wife wasn`t up to it today .. however i did manage to give her a couple of champers at home ,while i had a couple o ales with friends down at the club and managed to put on lotto for tonite and a couple of keno`s from the club ,you never know the god`s might smile upon us for doing something right after all these years.?.

  take care guys.. smiddy 3.

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  JeffT

  Congratulations and Happy Anniversary
  
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  11

  Scottish Queen of Woke Resigns

  by cofty in

  1. social
  2. current

  first new zealand's dictator resigned and now nicola sturgeon the first minister of scotland has announced her intention to go.. nobody is certain exactly what the trigger was but there are plenty of possibilities.

  the final straw may have been her 'gender recognition' act that would have made it possible for anybody 16 and over to legally change their sex on a whim.

  the vast majority of scots were opposed but she battered the legislation through holyrood regardless.

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  JeffT

  Seems to me that woke is the twenty-first century’s new religion.

  This.

  I find myself in repeated arguments with various family members. The fundamental problem that always blocks rational discussion is the fact that the "Wokes" treat this stuff like received wisdom. About three years ago we had an argument about trans people going to the prison for their chosen gender and the other inmates would "just have to learn to respect other people's boundaries."

  At which point I brought the conversation to an end by pointing out that if they could do that they should just teach people to not be criminals.
  
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  22

  WTBTS investments

  by enoughisenough in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this article, how be it from about 10 years ago.

  https://clarencesisk.com/watchtower-investments/ i didn't even go to the end of the article, but assuming the writer knew of which he wrote, wt had/has?

  stock in bot j&j and pfizer.

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  JeffT

  OK that one threw me for a loop for a minute. "Governing Body" has a distinct meaning for XJW's, one that is not shared by the IRS. In this case they mean "whoever is in charge" like a board of directors.
  
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  22

  WTBTS investments

  by enoughisenough in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this article, how be it from about 10 years ago.

  https://clarencesisk.com/watchtower-investments/ i didn't even go to the end of the article, but assuming the writer knew of which he wrote, wt had/has?

  stock in bot j&j and pfizer.

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  JeffT

  I need to spend a little time with this document to try to figure out what the hell they're doing. They claim 834K income on a three million dollar portfolio? That's almost a 1/3 profit!!! Then they claim over 700K in expenses. Something is not right with this.
  
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  26

  Why Does the WatchTower Society INVEST in unethical enterprises?

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  investing in unethical enterprises.

  in the ocean, big fish swallow the little fish while the big fish are swallowed by the even bigger fish.. below is an example of this principle.. .

  a fellow named mccann donated 50k shares of rand cam engine corp. to the watchtower society.. rand cam engine corp. manufactures aircraft engines for commercial, recreational, and military clients.

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  JeffT

  What Bartolomeo said.

  There is a difference between RAND CAM and the Rand Corporation. The corporation is a non-profit research firm. RAND CAM is trying to market a new kind of engine, with no evidence of success that I can find.

  I did some research on this the last time it came up here, and just took a look to refresh my memory. I'm not sure who came up with the design for the engine, or for that matter how the thing is supposed to work -- the available information reads like the ads for 200 mile per gallon carburetors they sell in the back pages of Popular Mechanics.

  Some how some JW's in Oregon and British Columbia acquired the rights to the engine and set up RAND CAM to sell it. They donated 50% of the stock to Watchtower, but retained the voting rights for themselves. They no doubt got a big tax deduction for the donation, while ensuring they kept control of the company.

  I believe, from prior research, that one or more of the JW's involved in this were DF'd.
  
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  15

  JWs at Culture Fest

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the state university where we live has cultural festivals educating the public about art, food and music of the minorities in the community.

  it is also an opportunity for some to generate a little income selling their wares and food.

  the jws have successfully put up a booth right in the campus building and used it to actively proselytize and distribute literature.

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  JeffT

  The State university

  This. It's public property and keeping people off it is very difficult (as in I'm surprised they can do it at all). Apparently the school will let religions set up booths for non-religious purposes. As we know the WTBS will cheerfully lie about what it's doing.

  I'd tell the administrative people there to ask if the JW's manning the booth are allowed to count the time toward their proselytizing quota for the month. Make him get it in writing. If they want to lie about it you can't stop them, but you can make them know you know/
  
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  11530

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  original reddit post (removed).

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  JeffT

  Kim, LMSA or anybody else that might know the answers to a couple of questions.

  I was initially interested in AAWA and sent my contact info with a view to joining their organization. Then the "John Cedars" signature scandal broke and I decided I didn't want anything to do with them. From my business background, I knew he couldn't sign that form, and couldn't imagine somebody dumb enough to do so. So the question: Did the state (Arizona or New Mexico i think) come down on them so they changed the form, or did somebody see what was wrong and fix it?

  Second question. In the US it is common feature of business contracts to specify a location for any court action. For example one of my last jobs was Controller for a company that raised money in Japan and bought apartments here. All our contracts specified that investor legal issues would be handled by Japanese courts. If it involved the building the US courts in Seattle would have jurisdiction.
  

  Do Lloyd's contracts with Patreon and/or his employees and investors have similar language? If so, that would be a major hangup for his court actions. Just curious.
  
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  22

  WTBTS investments

  by enoughisenough in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this article, how be it from about 10 years ago.

  https://clarencesisk.com/watchtower-investments/ i didn't even go to the end of the article, but assuming the writer knew of which he wrote, wt had/has?

  stock in bot j&j and pfizer.

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  JeffT

  I will take a longer look at these documents when I get a minute. My initial impression of the Henrietta Riley documents is that some time five to ten years ago that entity divested itself of some or all of the problematic stocks.

  It is impossible to know if that was in response to criticism from places like this board or something else. The Watchtower has done a good job of hiding its money from any accountability.

  When I was first becoming a JW I did a simple calculation. At that time the society was printing about ten million copies of every issue of the Watchtower and Awake, which they sold for 25 cents, essentially these cost free as they used slave volunteer labor, and magazines were paid for by the publishers when picked up at the hall. This works out to something north of a hundred million dollars a year.

  Plus all the other stuff. When I asked an elder what they did with the money I got some blah blah blah about the world wide work. Fortunately I fifteen years later I left.
  
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  22

  WTBTS investments

  by enoughisenough in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this article, how be it from about 10 years ago.

  https://clarencesisk.com/watchtower-investments/ i didn't even go to the end of the article, but assuming the writer knew of which he wrote, wt had/has?

  stock in bot j&j and pfizer.

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  JeffT

  Thanks for the information Atlantis. That is a more tangled than I thought.
  
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  22

  WTBTS investments

  by enoughisenough in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this article, how be it from about 10 years ago.

  https://clarencesisk.com/watchtower-investments/ i didn't even go to the end of the article, but assuming the writer knew of which he wrote, wt had/has?

  stock in bot j&j and pfizer.

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  JeffT

  Retied accountant here.

  This is not a tax return for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. It is a form 990, the form used for non-profit entities. In this case, the Henrietta M. Riley Foundation. It is either a private foundation, or a trust treated like a Foundation. The Watchtower is a beneficiary of the trust, meaning it gets the income generated by the trust.

  Irrevocable trusts are commonly used to pass on estates to children, or causes the grantor considers worth doing. I assume that MS Riley was some rich JW that got talked into creating this trust. One of the fun facts about this type of trust, is that the beneficiary has no control over how the funds are invested or managed, so long as the trustee is following instructions.

  I suspect that in this case Ms Riley's trust document says something like "make money and give it the WTBS," and failed to specify that the trust not deal in things like the military or tobacco. From my recollection of the last time this came up there was more of that sort of thing listed. It is possible that the trustee divested some problem stocks without violating the trust agreement.
  

  I may not be able to get any more information, but I'm going to try next week, just because I'm curious.

  I have no doubt that the WTBS has engaged in some questionable practices. I don't think this is one of them.