Wanted to bump this up since folks commented the last couple days. Thanks for your opinions !
KEPLER- Good point you make about not " placing all your life savings into one financial plan . " So many JW's have probably done that regarding handing over their personal funds to the WT Society ( especially older long time Witnesses ) - that at this point in time they'll never be able to recover financially from the WT scamming them out of their money. Really sad.
LISTENER- Very interesting statistics you share regarding how much the WT Society pays out for special pioneers, missionaries, and traveling overseers. Thanks for sharing that info. So that further explains the reasons for these WT cutbacks. Trying to save their financial asses.
CRAZYGUY- So yes indeed- if WT Society has expenses with real estate- all the crazy building projects worldwide- then you add the cost of missionaries, traveling overseers, and special pioneers, THEN add the cost of fighting child abuse lawsuits all over the world - I would say that gets really costly over the long haul.
VIDIOT- Exactly. I think we all got out of this cult just in the nick of time. ANY time one can escape the JW cult is a good time. Better late than never.
COGNAC- The one thing that's positive about cutting back all these Bethel workers, special pioneers, missionaries, traveling overseers, etc. is this : It will get these people talking and sniping in a negative way about being demoted so that they'll express their disappointment back to their local congregations once they return to their homes and hopefully foster a distrust of the WT Society's policies among other rank & file JW's upon returning. One can only hope.
SIR 82- Thanks for that current info on missionaries, I've been out so long ( since 2003 ) I didn't know what the current status is of missionaries now.
BILLZFAN 23- Of course some of what we are discussing here is speculation- but the fact remains that the WT Society IS making drastic cutbacks for SOME reason- most probably financial. It's obvious that the last several years they are operating at a loss so they have to do something to effect keeping their " pack of lies " organization running. No matter HOW many JW's they have to throw under the bus to do so. The child abuse lawsuits are not going to stop against the WT Society. A precedent was set with Candace Conti and Gilbert Lopez in which the WT Society had to pay out 13.5 million $$$$$. That ain't chicken scratch when you multiply hundreds if not thousands more of such lawsuits across the entire globe. It should be interesting to see what develops in the next 5 years or so