http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2777341
..even I am a bit gobsmacked
Where on earth does all this cash come from!!!!!
by Qcmbr 5 Replies latest jw friends
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Qcmbr
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Gerard
Yep. Cults are good bussiness.
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SeymourButts
The church's material triumphs rival even its evangelical advances. With unusual cooperation from the Latter-day Saints hierarchy (which provided some financial figures and a rare look at church businesses), TIME has been able to quantify the church's extraordinary financial vibrancy. Its current assets total a minimum of $30 billion. If it were a corporation, its estimated $5.9 billion in annual gross income would place it midway through the FORTUNE 500, a little below Union Carbide and the Paine Webber Group but bigger than Nike and the Gap. And as long as corporate rankings are being bandied about, the church would make any list of the most admired: for straight dealing, company spirit, contributions to charity (even the non-Mormon kind) and a fiscal probity among its powerful leaders that would satisfy any shareholder group, if there were one. The Latter-day Saints employ vast amounts of money in investments that TIME estimates to be at least $6 billion strong. Even more unusual, most of this money is not in bonds or stock in other peoples' companies but is invested directly in church-owned, for-profit concerns, the largest of which are in agribusiness, media, insurance, travel and real estate. Deseret Management Corp., the company through which the church holds almost all its commercial assets, is one of the largest owners of farm-and ranchland in the country, including 49 for-profit parcels in addition to the Deseret Ranch. Besides the Bonneville International chain and Beneficial Life, the church owns a 52% holding in ZCMI, Utah's largest department-store chain. All told, TIME estimates that the Latter-day Saints farmland and financial investments total some $11 billion, and that the church's nontithe income from its investments exceeds $600 million. (from a Time Magazine article, Aug.4,1997) Makes me wonder what the total assets of the Watchtower are.
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EvilForce
Yup religions make more money than any business I know except for nudie bars.
$ 6 beers and $ 20 lap dances = good profit margin -
greendawn
It looks as though someone is taking good care of all these religious organisations they are all very rich.
They can talk about pursuing the heavenly kingdom first and then material wealth, the real problem is that they don't use their wealth to promote spiritual interests.
I am sure the WTS is just as rich and materialistic. -
jaffacake
Who knows? Tithing? wills? bigger profits through tax fiddles etc, free or cheap labour? Child labour? Give us a clue.