Tribune Article and New Details About The 100 Billion Fund

[Calm]

18 minutes ago, Analytics said:

It is unlikely the whistleblower would say he heard this from Richard B. Willes if it weren't true.

We are hearing it from his brother, not the whistleblower, and at this point we have no input from David Nielsen how accurate his brother's portrayal of what David told him is.  

Plus given the general closed mouth approach, I see no reason to expect there to be any comment by Willes or anyone else correcting or confirming anything so specific.  It would be a radical departure imo.

[ksfisher]

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

It would seem the First Presidency does not trust the 12. My guess is that if the 12 saw how much is socked away for a rainy day, they'd use that to argue that more money be spent on this or that.

That's an interesting way of looking at that that wouldn't have occurred to me.  The First Presidency does not trust the 12.

In my ward the bishop let's me know the budget for the organization I'm the leader for, but he doesn't tell me the ward's overall budget or how much the primary or relief society get. 

I guess he must not trust me.

[Calm]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Clarke told Willes who told Nielsen. 

Just to clarify, Clark told Willes or Willes was in the meeting with him (personally I would think Clark would ask people to leave to have a private meeting if he was going to refuse something to the President of the Twelve), Willes told David Nielsen, and David Nielsen told Lars Nielsen.

[Robert F. Smith]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

Just to clarify, Clark told Willes or Willes was in the meeting with him (personally I would think Clark would ask people to leave to have a private meeting if he was going to refuse something to the President of the Twelve), Willes told David Nielsen, and David Nielsen told Lars Nielsen.

The Nielsen twins wrote the whistleblower report together.  We have no idea how accurate any of that is.

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Nielsen twins wrote the whistleblower report together.

We don't know that.  Lars introduces the expose as himself being the author of every word.  We have nothing from David confirming the level of his involvement.  Everything is filtered through Lars, who has contradicted himself on this.

It is on page 4:

Quote

I wrote every word and composedevery exhibit of “Letter to an IRS Director” and solely produced theonline videos that goby the same name. I did so with informationthat the whistleblowerfreely supplied,and with his permission I filed his claim(Form 211), notarized cover letter, and my full analysis to the IRS Whistleblower Office from my home state, which was done under penalty of perjury.And there it might never see the light of day for a good seven years.

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by Calm

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

............................................

Assuming it is true or doing good investigative journalism and finding the corroborative evidence?

Another good argument for full transparency.  As to corroboration, this does not come up to the level of WoodStein at the Washington Post:  Even with "Deep Throat," they had to corroborate every detail with at least two sources.

I's like to see Mike Quinn do a second edition of his recent book so as to take into account the Nielsen disclosures, and whatever else he can turn up by way of corroboration.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

We don't know that.  Lars introduces the expose as himself being the author of every word.  We have nothing from David confirming the level of his involvement.  Everything is filtered through Lars, who has contradicted himself on this.......................

Did I misread that the Nielsen brothers in fact wrote the whistleblower piece together?  I did not suggest that they were both witnesses to anything, only that they collaborated on the piece throughout.

The statement you quoted was likely written for legal reasons, and is clearly not true.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[Meadowchik]

56 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

That's an interesting way of looking at that that wouldn't have occurred to me.  The First Presidency does not trust the 12.

In my ward the bishop let's me know the budget for the organization I'm the leader for, but he doesn't tell me the ward's overall budget or how much the primary or relief society get. 

I guess he must not trust me.

So you being over your auxiliary (and therefore not needing to know the whole ward budget) is analogous to the  twelve apostles' duties over the church?

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Did I misread that the Nielsen brothers in fact wrote the whistleblower piece together?  I did not suggest that they were both witnesses to anything, only that they collaborated on the piece throughout.

The statement you quoted was likely written for legal reasons, and is clearly not true.

Lars has said both (that he wrote it with his brother as well as he wrote it himself).  I agree that it is likely not true (he certainly didn't "compose" the exhibits, but copied them...but he may be using "composed" for "collected and presented", but we are still getting everything through Lars, who was described by his ex wife as mentally unstable (she has an agenda, so may be lying), refused to cooperate with his brother, David, if David is telling the truth about begging him not to publish, and is someone who took months off of work because of his need to discredit the Church....possibly even putting the investigation and his brother's potential billions in finder's fees at risk.

He refers to the whistleblower telling him things throughout the paper, but there is a possibility (slight, but there I think) that this was all casual conversation with David maybe blowing off steam.

I don't think that is likely though, just think we need to be cautious in making claims.  I think David is as invested into discrediting the Church as Lars is (not because any whistleblower must be, but based on other info I have heard that may or may not be true, but makes sense to me).  I just think he may have more self control and is playing the long game while Lars was too impatient.  Otoh, it may all be orchestrated to keep David distanced from the antistuff or to allow him to deny his involvement if it looks like the exposé is a liability.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Calm

[ksfisher]

19 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

So you being over your auxiliary (and therefore not needing to know the whole ward budget) is analogous to the  twelve apostles' duties over the church?

I think so.  The 12 all have areas that they have responsibility for.  The First Presidency is responsible for the whole church.  We all act within our stewardship and just because you don't have information that doesn't pertain to your stewardship doesn't mean you aren't trusted.

[Meadowchik]

2 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I think so.  The 12 all have areas that they have responsibility for.  The First Presidency is responsible for the whole church.  We all act within our stewardship and just because you don't have information that doesn't pertain to your stewardship doesn't mean you aren't trusted.

I would say that the quorum of the 12 duties are not quite as modular as ward auxiliary duties.

[Robert F. Smith]

21 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I think so.  The 12 all have areas that they have responsibility for.  The First Presidency is responsible for the whole church.  We all act within our stewardship and just because you don't have information that doesn't pertain to your stewardship doesn't mean you aren't trusted.

A corporate board of directors should always have full access.  Otherwise, they can't do their job properly.  Another strong reason for full transparency.

[ksfisher]

38 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

A corporate board of directors should always have full access.  Otherwise, they can't do their job properly.  Another strong reason for full transparency.

The main reason I can see on this thread (and others about the same subject) for calls for transparency is that people don't trust the First Presidency.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Actually, this is undoubtedly true. A few years ago, some documents were leaked, including the Church's Financial Standard #6230, which was signed by the Church's Controller on June 3, 2013. This document shows who in the Church are allowed to see various components of the Church's finances. According to this document, the apostles are allowed to see reports on most income and expense items (e.g. Tithing donations, fast offering donations, project expenditures, operations expenditures, etc.), but "only for departments/areas under their stewardship." The apostles are not authorized to see most of the balance sheet items including Cash, Investment securities, Investment properties, Other assets, Liabilities, or Net assets. They also aren't authorized to see personnel data (salary, etc.).

There are only seven people who are fully authorized to see the books: the three members of the First Presidency, the three members of the Presiding Bishopric, and the Controller. A few others, such as auditors and employees in the auditing department and the Global Service Center are allowed to see things in all categories, but only based on the individual's role and responsibilities.

Financial Standard #6230 is on the Internet at the following location:

https://archive.org/stream/MormonDocumentsLDSChurchInternalLeaks/25-AccessingAndSecuringFinancialInformation#page/n3/mode/2up

It would seem the First Presidency does not trust the 12. My guess is that if the 12 saw how much is socked away for a rainy day, they'd use that to argue that more money be spent on this or that. The First Presidency and/or Presiding Bishopric doesn't want apostles arguing that money be spent on this or that, so the amount is withheld from them.

According to the story, the whistle blower heard about the event from Richard B. Willes, the head of fixed income at EPA, who quite plausibly would have been in the meeting with Packer and heard it directly. It is unlikely the whistleblower would say he heard this from Richard B. Willes if it weren't true.

Also probably true.

Assuming it is true or doing good investigative journalism and finding the corroborative evidence?

If they found corroborative evidence they should have reported on that instead of doing a book report on the expose.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

It specifies the whistleblower was not at the meeting as it has the source as Willes...so not even Clarke, the one who allegedly said it.  I find it unlikely that the Presiding Bishop and his counselors know, but not the Twelve.  If decisions are based on unity, it seems to me likely the Twelve are informed if only for convenience.

Added:  I see Analytics responded already.  I will have to check out the info provided later...likely tomorrow...to see if that changes my mind.  I had forgotten about that claim as I didn't studied it when it came out iirc.

Then why use direct quotes in a report that is actually second-hand office gossip.

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

The main reason I can see on this thread (and others about the same subject) for calls for transparency is that people don't trust the First Presidency.

I haven't commented about all this for a number of reasons. All I will say is that I doubt that trust has anything to do with it. Every large organization has fiscal policies in place to conform to compliance needs and to safeguard and ensure accuracy of data while ensuring transparency for all stakeholders, which for a large urban public school district is a just about everyone (parent, citizen, etc. of the district). I was the CFO of one of the largest school districts in America. Between all funds we had an annual operating and facilities budget of around 2 billion dollars. Anyone could issue a public records request. Our report to the state each year exceeded 700 pages. Not everyone could see all the information on a routine basis, yet there was a process in place to ensure that anyone who followed the public records act could see whatever they desired. I can't imagine any organization, especially a non-profit (not for profit) not having similar practices. 

[Scott Lloyd]

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Then why use direct quotes in a report that is actually second-hand office gossip.

Another case of playing fast-and-loose with quotation marks. One of the most widely violated conventions of language. 
 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

Got this in my email today:  https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-jesus-christ-finances .

A good summary, but this shouldn't be necessary after the fact.  All this should be said upfront, on a regular basis, and in greater detail.  Long before it becomes a matter of controversy.

[ksfisher]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I haven't commented about all this for a number of reasons. All I will say is that I doubt that trust has anything to do with it. Every large organization has fiscal policies in place to conform to compliance needs and to safeguard and ensure accuracy of data while ensuring transparency for all stakeholders, which for a large urban public school district is a just about everyone (parent, citizen, etc. of the district). I was the CFO of one of the largest school districts in America. Between all funds we had an annual operating and facilities budget of around 2 billion dollars. Anyone could issue a public records request. Our report to the state each year exceeded 700 pages. Not everyone could see all the information on a routine basis, yet there was a process in place to ensure that anyone who followed the public records act could see whatever they desired. I can't imagine any organization, especially a non-profit (not for profit) not having similar practices. 

So you complied with the laws applicable to your organization.  Are there any laws regarding financial matters that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not following?  

[ksfisher]

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Got this in my email today:  https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-jesus-christ-finances .

A good summary, but this shouldn't be necessary after the fact.  All this should be said upfront, on a regular basis, and in greater detail.  Long before it becomes a matter of controversy.

I don’t see anything there that hasn’t been said before.  Am I missing something?

Edited December 23, 2019 by ksfisher

[ksfisher]

37 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Another case of playing fast-and-loose with quotation marks. One of the most widely violated conventions of language. 
 

 

“Really?”

[Robert F. Smith]

15 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I don’t see anything there that hasn’t been said before.  Am I missing something?

Those who actively seek information can certainly find it, and I have even written a detailed account of LDS Church largesse -- because I couldn't find one anywhere which did the Church justice.  Maybe I am the one missing something.  If it has all been said before and in great detail, please turn me on to it.  Thanks.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Then why use direct quotes in a report that is actually second-hand office gossip.

Because the author wasn’t that concerned with being accurate, he wanted drama more. 

[The Nehor]

17 hours ago, Calm said:

Because the author wasn’t that concerned with being accurate, he wanted drama more. 

And I suspect he made up or exaggerated the story.

[Navidad]

22 hours ago, ksfisher said:

So you complied with the laws applicable to your organization.  Are there any laws regarding financial matters that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not following?  

I have no idea because I have no knowledge of the laws governing their exact situation. For me it is not a matter only a matter of laws, but of openness and transparency with your stakeholders. These are the things that engender trust and they in some ways, transcend faith. Based on my church, district, and other non-profit experiences I believe every member of the LDS church and every partner (entity that has a need to know) like investment partners, rating agencies (assuming they need to report to rating agencies), pertinent governmental agencies, etc. should be able to have access to any and all of the organization's financial and operational data. It is a matter of wisdom as much as it is a matter of compliance. I am currently the treasurer of a prominent independent scholars association. I can assure you any member of our group can ask me anything about our finances. I will do all I can to give them all the information they ask for. I really struggle with understanding the value and the values involved in non-disclosure. I am obviously speaking in general. I am not an LDS church member so I am sure there is much I don't understand.