Posts by shepherdless

42

Watchtower Corp of New York worth over$ 2 billion

by Diogenesister in

in the montana sex abuse court case for the first time watchtower has been required by the courts to give a financial statement to the court to assess awards of punitive damages for negligence and (for the first time)malice in non compliance of mandatory reporting laws.. watchtower corp of new york has finances in excess of $2 billion while cc of jw is worth $49 million.

this doesn't include the pensylvania corp or what overseas branches may have.. pretty healthy bank balance by any standards..

shepherdless

A few comments.

I thought the $1.6 billion figure came from a document extract, that was placed on another thread (perhaps another site). I recall the figure was slightly less, but close enough to $1.6 billion.

As Corney says, the info is of limited use, as we don’t know anything about the composition of the assets and liabilities. For example, we don’t know if it includes the Kingdom Halls. If it does, then either they have been assigned a book value equivalent to (say) their original purchase price, rather than their current market price, or WTBTS is carrying some serious debt. I can’t see how the figure would be as low as $1.6 billion otherwise.

As JWGonbad points out, most of that money will almost certainly be tied up in property, and other illiquid assets. They won’t have “1.6 billion greenbacks”.

Also, as Corney says, there is a long way to go, before that $35 million is paid out.

8

My wife's JW literature...

by TD in

jw
friends

...it went into the trash yesterday.

.

this is not "goodbye" altogether, but i'm (understandably, i hope) pretty weary of all things jw at this point.. may all of you have a happy, healthy, exceptional, rocking future!.

shepherdless

Wonderful news.

60

I Wouldn’t Be Surprised If The USA Had Another Civil War!

by minimus in

jw
friends

i have never seen this country so divided.

something is going to give.

they is such a lack of recognition for the law.

shepherdless

I find it hard to believe a civil war is possible. However, I wonder if USA could end up being the Argentina of the 21st century. A lot of the ingredients are there:

- Unusually unequal wealth distribution (admittedly not the inequality that Argentina had in its heyday);

- Highly divisive politics, with few in the middle;

- Budget finances out of control;

- Politicians bought out by powerful commercial interests;

- A tarrif war with its trading partners.

Probably a few more things need to happen, before USA heads down that slope, but it is concerning.

41

How many here think Trump's news conference this evening was absolutely brilliant

by ShirleyW in

jw
friends

i'm being serious, i would like to hear from folks here that support him describe to me how that news conference was absolute brilliance, he answered all the questions, he knows what he is talking about.

just want to compare note with those who aren't his supporters (and have common sense) as you know this forum is here to hear both sides, so, have at it .

.

shepherdless

By chance I saw that news conference live, from the start to near the end, when I got bored and changed channels. My impression was that he was sharp, even impressive, in the answers he gave, around 80% of the time.

Trump comes across as very confident all of the time. He has great stage presence, and he seems to enjoy being at the centre of it all, even in the adversarial environment of a press conference.

One thing that a lot of politicians do that really irritates me, is that they don’t make any real attempt to answer a question; they just make a statement of their own choosing. I thought Trump’s answers were as responsive to the questions as you would get from a typical politician.

Trump can’t seem to speak for too long a period, before letting out some ridiculous hyperbole or saying something he shouldn’t or doesn’t make sense. Eg Coded Logic’s quote above. I don’t understand how he gets away with it. I guess it is his unflinching confident demeanour.

Overall, I think Trump’s minders would have been happy with his performance, and everyone else’s opinion will be influenced by what they think of him.

44

Study Watchtower confirms shunning spiritually weak. How nice!

by Isambard Crater in

it really hurt to hear brothers and sisters commenting about this at the meeting yesterday.. "as in solomon’s case, one of the greatest threats to spirituality is friendship with those who do not understand or respect jehovah’s standards.

some may be associated with the congregation but may be spiritually weak.

others could be relatives, neighbors, coworkers, or schoolmates who are not worshippers of jehovah.

shepherdless

It all smacks of desperation, to me. Yes, it it will probably pull the most loyal closer in. But surely it will also (as Vidiot says) tend to:

prune out the fakers, faders, and fence-sitters.

My guess is the most loyal tend to be older, and the fence-sitters tend to be younger. Another dumb move, Watchtower. It will probably hurt a fair few people in the process, but Watchtower won't give a fxxx about that.

90

Is attendance down in your location too?

by StarryNight9 in

jw
friends

i was commenting on another thread about how local kh attendance is down.

memorial attendance was also way down and the circuit assembly had hundreds less people than what is typical.

my jw family has even mentioned it.

shepherdless

My wife's congregation was down to about 30 attendees before merging last year with the other cong that shared the same hall. The other cong they merged with was apparently healthier.

A while ago I asked if it was busy. She said it was much busier; she now has to look around to get 4 empty seats in a row (for her and kids). She said she might try to get there a little early to be sure. My take on that is it is probably about 2/3 capacity. I have not been inside to check for myself.

Car park seems half empty. Apart from my kids, there are a few other kids, including one at the same high school. My kids don't mix with them.

138

JW org collapses

by I Faded Twice in

ok so this is a topic i've pondered and go back and forth on.. i can easily see a point where lawsuits cause massive deficits in the organization.

honestly i feel like we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in regards to lawsuits on child abuse.

to me it looks like the property sell offs are to be able to get ready for this.

shepherdless

Thanks cobweb. Certainly no apology needed; I don't seem to have the ego some other people have. Glad you liked the threads.

138

JW org collapses

by I Faded Twice in

ok so this is a topic i've pondered and go back and forth on.. i can easily see a point where lawsuits cause massive deficits in the organization.

honestly i feel like we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in regards to lawsuits on child abuse.

to me it looks like the property sell offs are to be able to get ready for this.

shepherdless

Cobweb: I seem to recollect seeing on one of slim's collapse threads some demographic data showing jw members by age range.

That may have been from one of the threads that I started:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5260866569109504/jw-decline-additional-data-from-aust-2016-census

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6298997348106240/aust-2016-census-observations-jws-getting-older-more-kids-leaving-30-group-arent-returning

Basically, the demographics show that the number of people who call themselves JWs in Australia has started to decrease by nearly 1% a year, and that decrease will get bigger. Given that other aspects of the data seem to match the US Pew survey, I think it is a safe bet to say that what is happening in Aust, is happening throughout the the West.

At this stage, you would have to project that in somewhere around 30 to 50 years, the religion in Aust will be about half the size. If you find that hard to believe, go back and read the charts.

Of course, most of this data is historical. In recent times, the perception of Watchtower has become a lot worse, congregations have merged, Kingdom Halls sold, etc. These are separate factors that are too recent to be a significant factor in the data. It is possible, even probable, that these factors, and the others listed by SBF, will accelerate the decline.

I see decline becoming more and more obvious in the coming years. It will be interesting to see how JWs rationalize it.

109

Serena William is 'fighting for women'?!

by LoveUniHateExams in

so serena williams lost the us open final 6-2, 6-4 to naomi osaka, her japanese-american opponent.. williams received three code violations from the umpire, carlos ramos: .

1. a warning for illegal coaching (subsequently admitted by williams's coach).

2. a point penalty for smashing her racquet.

shepherdless

This is my take:

1. Warning for coaching

Every player knows a player is not supposed to get coaching while playing. That even applies in local club competition. It is cheating. It may be hard to catch or prove (eg see the controversy over Andy Murray’s loss to Verdasco), but the rule itself is unambiguous. The only exceptions are team events such as Davis Cup.

In any event, Serena only got a “code violation” warning, which normally means nothing.

2. Smashing racquet and 3. Abusing umpire

The next two events are remarkably similar to what McEnroe did in his infamous match against Pernfors back in about 1990 (which I saw live).

In short, McEnroe had already received a “code violation”. The match is tight, and he misses a point. He bounces his racquet hard on the ground. You can hear the crack. A point violation is given, straight away. McEnroe calls the referee, and tries to argue that the racquet is not broken, and he plans to continue playing with it. He loses the argument. As the referee walks off, McEnroe apparently yells an obcenity. (It is hard to pick up on the tv replay, but apparently he did.) The referee straight away u-turns. Third violation. Under the rules at that time, a third violation was a forfeit, not just a game penalty, and hence McEnroe was thrown out.

The reason I set all that out is to show that it is simply untrue that Serena was treated any worse than a male player would have been.

109

Serena William is 'fighting for women'?!

by LoveUniHateExams in

so serena williams lost the us open final 6-2, 6-4 to naomi osaka, her japanese-american opponent.. williams received three code violations from the umpire, carlos ramos: .

1. a warning for illegal coaching (subsequently admitted by williams's coach).

2. a point penalty for smashing her racquet.

shepherdless

In 2009 (one of the events i referenced before) Serena threatened to shove a "F**** ball" down the "F***** throat" of a small female line judge during the US Open.

Yes, that was against Clijsters in a semi-final. The line judge called Serena for a foot-fault.

Serena’s behaviour in losing the final the following year to Sam Stosur was pretty poor, as well. Serena doesn’t lose often, but when she does...