Posts by slimboyfat

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

I have addressed this point. You are making the same naive assumption Watchtower have made. They believed that when they stopped charging for the literature that the brothers would keep donating the same amount anyway. It turned out they were wrong, contributions fell and their output has shrunk as a result.

Actually the key quote from you above I thought was this one:

The org will simply find new ways to separate the sheep from their money as every other religion always has and will have an easier time than most since its a high control cult.

Which is exactly the point. JWs have defined themselves as a religion that does not tithe or pass collections. Historically they have made their money from selling literature, so they didn't need to. It's undeniable that other religions make their money in other ways - mainly by tithing, collections and charitable activity. The question is how is Watchtower going to make their money now that publishing has dried up. Simply saying "they'll find a way" is not an answer. What way? And how? So far there's no evidence they've found any way to replicate the income they once made from literature sales. The best solutions offered so far has been charges for digital content or a tithe on membership. Neither of which Watchtower have yet done, and it's questionable if it would work if they did.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

Whatever your definition of tithe, I think it implies more than simply appealing for donations with no sanction.

In some European countries churches have the legal right to tax their members, which is ollected along with general taxation. So far (as far as I know) JWs have not joined such programs, I don't know if that was on principle or because they would be rejected. Maybe they will try to be included in the scheme at some point.

In any case JWs are very low contributors from what I can tell. I am looking at local churches that generally collect £30, 000 to £200,000 a year. The local congregation of JWs less than £9000.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

Fisherman, as I understand it yes, publishers paid up front for the literature at the desk. I also recall something about pioneers or special pioneers getting a discount. I can't quite remember that far back in detail.

I find it interesting that in the UK Jehovah's Witnesses have around 130,000 active members who donated £15 million to the Watchtower Society in 2013. Whereas Mormons have around 70,000 active members who donated £30 million to their church. The situation is probably much more complicated than that. But the idea Mormons contribute something in the region of four times as much as JWs would not surprise me at all.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

I wonder if anyone knows or has a good estimate what monthly allowance bethelites got in the 1980s and an estimate how much it cost to house and feed them. My very rough guess is they could have done that for $5000 or less per bethelite per year. If there were around 5000 bethelites in the period that would mean a total cost of $25 million a year to house, feed and pay bethelites an allowance. That's probably an overestimate.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

If I understand the charts on this page correctly they indicate that the magazines cost less than 5 cents to produce at a time when the cover price was 25 cents. (That differs from the price quoted above but it's the figure Watters gives for 1979 - worth checking if possible) With a circulation of 10 million each of W & A that would mean a profit of $94 million a year just from magazines.

Books are more difficult to work out, both the unit cost and the sales totals.

But when you consider that each JW in this period would likely buy: a yearbook, a daily text book, a calendar, a couple of the new release books for the year, plus other items less regularly: Bibles, song books, tapes, videos, concordances, insight books, reference Bibles, large print editions and so on. Incomes from literature sales was clearly substantial. No wonder they had money to burn in the 1980s and into the 90s!

http://www.freeminds.org/history/presroom.htm

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

I am trying to counter your claim that the revenue from the publications was their main and lucrative source of income. $50,000,000.00 a year is hardly the MAIN source of operating revenue for an organization as large as WATCHTOWER.

Some figures from Britain for the 1980s are available through the links shepherdless gave.

In 1985 it shows income at the British branch: £4,303,000 came from the sale of literature whereas the total from donations and legacies was £470,000. Clearly literature sales was their main source of income in this period. (Possibly more was donated to the IBSA, but nevertheless £4.3 million from literature and magazine sales is substantial for this period)

I find it strange that you say $50,000,000 was not much annual profit in the 1980s. Yet a billion dollars from the sale of property in 2016 is said to be a huge sum that will keep them going for years. I'd much rather an annual income of $50 million dollars (in 1980s money!) than a one off payment of $1 billion in today's money! Within a few years you'd be up on the deal.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

In my congregation they've got an oversupply of elders - 11 elders for 55 publishers. I know that's not typical.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

So the "sanction" is they send a letter to the congregation and hope that anonymous donations increase. Good luck with that.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

sparky1 are you saying they didn't make a lot of money from the literature? From your figures they sold around 10 million Watchtowers per issue at 20c each. Double it to include Awake! (Slightly fewer Awakes! printed but I rounded the Watchtower figure down anyway) That's 20 million copies, 24 times a year. I make that just under 100 million dollars from magazine sales alone per year. Say production costs were as much as half of that, that's 50 million dollars profit from magazine sales alone.

Subscriptions didn't make a lot of money but they clearly weren't a loss. Because when the charge was dropped, subscriptions were dropped pretty quick too. Watchtower was not in the business of handing stuff out for nothing in return.

On top of that you had book sales, including quality hardcover reference books, Bibles, tapes, videos, calendars and everything else in the 1980s.

Plus my memory is that publishers would sometimes pay for the magazines themselves and give the money from householders to the world wide work in addition. I can also remember that householders would sometimes pay more than the cover price for the literature because it seemed so little.

Watchtower made its money not by charging large amounts, but through sheer scale.

192

Question for SBF

by Fisherman in

slimboyfat, it appears that wts is going, gone digital.

can you show your view what is wts next move after they are completely gone from kings county and settled in warwick?

- this thread is your if you want it..

slimboyfat

If it's a "mandatory" donation, what's the sanction for not meeting it?

If a Mormon doesn't pay tithe they can't hold any office in the church. And positions are much more common in Mormonism, much more than Elder, ministerial servant or pioneer, practically every active member has a role of some sort, and must pay the tithe. (There are exceptions for unemployed but this is somewhat stigmatised and not approved long term)

JWs don't even have a system for monitoring what individual donate.