by slimboyfat 165 Replies latest members private
The. WTS. does. not. has...not...and....will....never pay...any....congregation's....operating....expenses.....
Which brings us back to voluntarily contributions (and no money making model) and the short blanket that covers KH expenses and WT funding.
I assume part of the reason for herding people into fewer but larger congregations is so light bills and ongoing expenses can be paid from a pooling of contributions from several small comgregations to one large ...ish congregation.
so light bills and ongoing expenses can be paid...
KH usually have more than one Cong meeting there and each Cong has a share of the total expense and if one Cong does not get enough donations to pay for its share of the light bill for example, the congs work it out. When there are not enough people coming to the meetings to justify having a Cong, then the solution is merging. Also, bills should be paid because what I have seen is that when bills are not paid, products and services are discontinued and as sir82 points out ( at least for the US ) the wt is not going to wire the Cong money at the end of the month if it can't make ends meet. And obviously, if you have a couple of congreagations meeting at seperate times, by consolidating into one for example, everyone uses the same utilities for half as long which is a savings that adds up, among other savings. This may be necessary for poor congs to pay the bills or to send the money saved to wt www -whatever the case may be.
Best comment on the thread. Perhaps best comment on any thread. I agree with it one hundred percent. I've tried to say the same things except but less elegantly(!).
They don't have cash flow issues. They can pay today's expenses with cash on hand.
They do have long-term sustainability issues. These are becoming increasingly problematic for them.
In 1990 when the WTS changed to a "donation" arrangement, they did so begrudgingly. There were no good alternatives. If they became accountable for California sales tax, (the legal precedent set by State of California v. James Swaggart), they become taxable, period. This means real estate tax; capital gains tax on all investment dividends and income; etc. They were charging something like $6 at the time for a "deluxe" bible. That bible would cost more like $40 dollars in 1990 dollars, if they would survive as a taxable organization, just on the surface of it. Never mind the fact that becoming a taxable organization delegitimitizes them as a religion. Becoming taxable was a non-starter, period.
We are seeing the slow financial demise of the organization. The first actions taken in the 1990s were cost cutting, such as conversion to paperback books; elimination of meal service at assemblies; and magazine reductions. In the 2000s, it was selling off branches, laying off Bethelites, and more magazine reductions. Now, it's selling off world-class Brooklyn Heights properties to Kushner; taking Kingdom hall deeds and begging for money. Since they have plenty of assets they can liquidate and reinvest, this will take time, however make no mistake, it is happening. It is that simple. They are in a long-term financial demise.
Fewer halls with larger congregations means less halls to maintain and less bills, all donations going towards the upkeep of one hall makes sense. They should have started doing it years ago.
The area I live in there are five congregations ranging from 40-80 publishers with the smallest only 15-20 pubs turn up to meetings regularly and in the largest only 30-40. Three of these congs have their own hall and two of them share one hall and all the halls are within 40minutes drive of one another.
The atmosphere in the whole area has been dying a slow death for the last ten years people will border hop and go to different meetings for a while to break up the monotony and try to defibrillate their faith but it's like someone called time of death and these people just don't know it yet.
If the branch had merged these congs years ago they may be a bit stronger now that there is a website and happy little propaganda videos to watch together and not the nonsensical ignorant dronings of the local uneducated hick brothers, but even if they merged it now it would be too little too late for this area. The real estate market has tanked the meeting attendance has tanked and FS is non existant bar a couple of sad carts.
My question really isn't about why merge congs it's why the hell did they wait so long as they would have known about this problem for years. I think the only reason they haven't merged here yet is because the state of the real estate market is dismal. Certainly not because they cared about the moral of the brothers.
WT will do whatever the hell it wants anyway.
Hope done4good and sparrowdown's forecasts are reality -- good news, indeed!
What made things obvious to me they are in melt down was one when they closed down a branch in Africa, Zimbabwe or someplace like that. I mean they closed a branch in a part of the world where they were still having plenty of growth but didn't care because they weren't making money. The next thing they did was recall the missionaries and stopped paying them. They basically gave up on recruiting new members at least in the third world.
Crazy - the ole cult's true colors revealed. They're really believers in sharing the good news/LOL, but they can depend on the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations spreading hope to those hungering and thirsting. What a joke WT is but that's nothing new.
Now, it's selling off world-class Brooklyn Heights properties to Kushner;
Even if they were making money hand over fist, they had to sell anyway for different reasons. Albeit the big amount of money the property is worth is still one reason for the sale.
they have plenty of assets they can liquidate and reinvest.
Reinvest in what? Wt is not like the Mormons who build shopping malls and neither does wt develop properties to builld condos or luxury apartments. No more real estate investments for wt in NYC.
NHK paid one million dollars for Squibb. Can't buy land for that much in NYC let alone a house with the land. They can sell off KH to developers who will knock them down and build skyscrapers or high rise buildings, and consolidate jw into less KHs but they can't buy any more real estate in NYC because it is too expensive and how to invest so much money to build KHs to make so little in contributions only for convenience of jw.( I remember a talk at an assembly " there is no free lunch" as a reminder of the end of free food at assemblies) If wt was in the developing business, they would have made billions with the heights properties as developers and landlords, turn KH into high rise buildings, hotels, etc. making billions and billions. But wt only uses property for www.
It appears financially astute for wt to sell the properties: KH, assembly halls -for fat amounts- and use the money for www -at least those in expensive areas and merge into fewer KH to finance www. .So after selling properties for fat amounts and managing that money long term for existence, what is the model for making money? Since, they can't justify investing in property and because property is too expensive to invest in. What will they do with the money from the sales.
Best comment on the thread. Perhaps best comment on any thread. I agree with it one hundred percent. I've tried to say the same things except but less elegantly(!).
Indeed SBF I agree with it 100% too, as I say we won't see its demise in our life times though...your earlier points seem to indicate you think it would be hence why I offered a different opinion...
But those comments you quoted are spot on.
