As I understand it, a lot of what passes for "real estate business" is simply riding the inflation of boom periods anyway. Making money long term from property is not easy. But if you get lucky during a boom it breeds overconfidence, as WT may be. When the WT sells its major property assets there's no guarantee they'll ever manage to recover anything like it. Free labour doesn't cover a slump or an asset sale during a particular phase of the cycle. Financially it appears WT is in serious trouble with no readily apparent solution.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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45
Britain Branch to Cease Printing Sooner Than Expected
by The Searcher ini've received the following news from a reliable and trusted source: .
the demise of printing literature in the u.k. is being brought forward by one year - to march 2018. graphic design and printing support will go too.
large numbers of "disposable" bethelites will now have to make their own way in the world, when their "mother" abandons them.
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Britain Branch to Cease Printing Sooner Than Expected
by The Searcher ini've received the following news from a reliable and trusted source: .
the demise of printing literature in the u.k. is being brought forward by one year - to march 2018. graphic design and printing support will go too.
large numbers of "disposable" bethelites will now have to make their own way in the world, when their "mother" abandons them.
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slimboyfat
It reminds me. Please someone else who knows the story in detail either contradict or confirm the following:
I visited the Austrian branch in the early 2000s. From what I remember it was small but there was a whole section of the branch that was not in use. In the 1990s or 1980s they had expanded the branch in anticipation of printing lots of literature in many languages of Eastern Europe when communism collapsed. But in the event, although JWs grew strongly in Eastern Europe, it also coincided with the replacement of hardcover books with paperbacks, and printing in Europe was consolidated in Selters in Germany. I'm not sure if the Austrian branch was ever even used to print on the basis that it was intended. It lay half dormant for around two decades before the branch was closed altogether. Hardly a sterling example of efficient planning or use of funds.
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Britain Branch to Cease Printing Sooner Than Expected
by The Searcher ini've received the following news from a reliable and trusted source: .
the demise of printing literature in the u.k. is being brought forward by one year - to march 2018. graphic design and printing support will go too.
large numbers of "disposable" bethelites will now have to make their own way in the world, when their "mother" abandons them.
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slimboyfat
My guess is they started planning and building the new headquarters before the decision to cease printing in Britain was made or perhaps even contemplated. They are making cutbacks at break-neck speed, and the impression they give is a rather hasty and chaotic retreat.
incidentally it's simply not true that ebooks are replacing physical books in society at large. Recent figures have shown decline in ebook sales and increase in physical book sales.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/13/books-ebook-publishers-paper
I think that the JW leadership is moving into ebooks and downloads simply because they can't make money from physical books any more. This is a consideration that is peculiar to JWs in particular, and not general to the publishing industry. It's not because books in general are in decline (they are not) but because the Watchtower organisation has been unable to charge a set price for the literature since the 1990s.
So new technology is not forcing the JW leadership out of publishing. Rather new technology is enabling JWs to get out of publishing altogether which was already no longer lucrative for the organisation for at least a couple of decades now. The signs that publishing was simply no longer generating money have been there since the 1990s: when they stopped printing attractive hardbacks and producing cheap paperbacks instead.
If they were still charging for the literature they'd still be making money out of them and they wouldn't be cutting back.
I would not be surprised if the organisation stops printing altogether. It may still want to print Bibles, tracts and a few select items. But they could probably pay outside companies to do that, as they did in the early years of the Watch Tower.
All of which does rather raise the question what bethel and headquarters are for. Other than to provide a nice environment for the GB to live and exercise authority.
Plus if they stop printing operations then what are they asking ordinary JWs to donate money for? To maintain JW broadcasting and the website? It's a bit thin grounds for asking monthly contributions from working people and old people to hand over life savings.
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Calendar of Jehovah God
by Saename init's so stupid i think it infected me with its virus: pagan practices.
check the subheading "calendar.
".
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slimboyfat
The same 1935 Golden Age magazinethat laid the groundwork for 1975.
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WT - Study Ed, October 2017 - The Truth Brings, “Not Peace, But a Sword”
by Sanchy inanother article analyzing how bad poor jw's have it when it comes to opposition from family.
few interesting quotes:.
parr 2:.
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slimboyfat
There was a convention talk with the same theme about "bringing a sword" in the family a few years ago which was even more hardline.
There are many good things about JWs, but it is hard to support this. I really wonder what average JWs think. I think it's the worst JW talk I ever heard.
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WT - Study Ed, October 2017 - The Truth Brings, “Not Peace, But a Sword”
by Sanchy inanother article analyzing how bad poor jw's have it when it comes to opposition from family.
few interesting quotes:.
parr 2:.
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slimboyfat
I guess JW elders would come down on the side that DFed people should not be on your friend list. Essentially it could be a judicial matter. The question is would they seek out the information, or be brazen enough to make an issue out of it.
The obvious solution, if JW elder policing of Facebook became widespread, would be for ordinary JWs to make their friend lists private.
In which case maybe especially officious elders might complain "I can't access the page to see who is on your friend list".
Surely that would never actually happen. But who knows.
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WT - Study Ed, October 2017 - The Truth Brings, “Not Peace, But a Sword”
by Sanchy inanother article analyzing how bad poor jw's have it when it comes to opposition from family.
few interesting quotes:.
parr 2:.
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slimboyfat
I have never heard of anyone getting DFed for having friends on Facebook. Has anyone got any experience of that. I suspect it would have made a news story or something if it happened.
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WT - Study Ed, October 2017 - The Truth Brings, “Not Peace, But a Sword”
by Sanchy inanother article analyzing how bad poor jw's have it when it comes to opposition from family.
few interesting quotes:.
parr 2:.
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slimboyfat
Has anyone ever faced reproof or JC for having a DFed relative in their Facebook list? It's sounds like this could happen. Crazy.
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If you think JW have a poor conversion/retention rate have a read of this.
by joe134cd inthese are quotes from the following article.
i think they are quite key.
all things considered i don't think the dubs are doing to bad after all.
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slimboyfat
This is correct, only about 30% of Mormons worldwide are "active". And what they mean by active is not very active in comparison with a JW publisher who regularly attends meetings.
In all countries that include religion in the census a clear pattern emerges. Far fewer people identify themselves as Mormon than the church claims as members, whereas far more people identify as JW than the Yearbook claims as publishers.
Take Mexico for example.
Mormons claims 1.4 million members in Mexico, yet only 300,000 identify themselves as Mormon.
JWs on the other hand claim 800,000 publishers in Mexico, yet more than 1.5 million people identify themselves as JWs.
What's more, the number of Mormon congregations has been declining in Europe for years, whereas until now JW congregation numbers have increased or remained steady in most countries.
In Britian for example there are 1,613 JW congregations compared with only 333 Mormon congregations, down over 10% from a peak of 374 in 1999.
Other countries show greater Mormon decline.
In France there are 108 Mormon congregations, down from 128.
In Germany 166 down from 188.
In the Netherlands 33 down from 43.
In Italy 101 down from 133.
Figures taken from the pro Mormon website:
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23
What are the chances of getting another Raymond Franz default from head office ?
by Chook inall regimes get defectors and some are more vocal than others..
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slimboyfat
Probably quite slim chances.
One of the most striking things about CofC is just how reluctant Raymond Franz was to leave the GB and the organisation. Despite all his doubts and differences with JW teaching and policy, he actually wanted to stay.
Sometimes I think Franz is misunderstood as having decided to leave JWs of his own accord over a "crisis of conscience" but that's not what his book actually says. He tried very hard to evade expulsion, but he apparently had some powerful enemies on the GB, and in the febrile post-1975 atmosphere they were determined to get rid of him.
It's an unusual set of circumstances that's probably unlikely to be repeated. If there are GB members with doubts or differences they are likely to stay where they are unless very strong (probably personal) motivations compel them otherwise.