Putting the Church’s “Rainy Day Fund” In Perspective

[Analytics]

38 minutes ago, Mark Beesley said:

I began this post characterizing these criticisms of Church finances as insane. That was a generous characterization.

😂

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I do.

I think the takeaway is that we can infer from the Church's actions that the refrain to "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust and market crashes doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" is no longer applicable in the 21st century, and that prudence dictates that we should all do our best to build up significant savings.

I also think an important gospel takeaway is to recognize that since the second commandment was given in the Garden of Eden, commandments have had irreconcilable contradictions and that we need to choose which ones to obey and which ones to break. The Church now asks its members to given 10% of their income to the Church and to have their own prudent savings. For those of us lucky enough to have the financial resources to pay a full tithing and to fully fund retirement accounts and emergency funds, good for us! For the rest of us, we should follow the Church's example and make personal savings our top priority, even if it means not paying tithing. 

Interesting; thank you. The Lord’s statement about treasures in earth and heaven are more about where your heart is (“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”): you can have a treasure in heaven where your heart is, and that will drive the treatment of your treasure on earth, the “replenish the earth, and subdue it” part of the command in the Garden of Eden, and that is the opposite of 3 Nephi 27:32 (“sell me for silver and for gold, and for that which moth doth corrupt and which thieves can break through and steal.”). The Church is bound to lose money once in a while, even while subduing it with a heart in heaven, simply because of the way the treasures in earth work.

Even the commandments in the Garden of Eden are eventually found to be complementary and reconciled through Christ. That has been demonstrated time and time again. Commands like steward the earth (prudent savings) and paying tithe are a piece of cake in comparison, a matter of faith and where your heart is. When your heart is in Zion, you are not afraid to tithe, nor receive help when in good faith and effort you come up short in your savings. We are all here to learn things like that.

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The $297 billion it needs to set aside to pay future claims are a liability on its balance sheet (and bear the unfortunate name "reserves"--reserves conjures up a vision of money that is set aside. But in insurance accounting, reserves are a liability, not an asset). The remaining assets (i.e. the rainy day fund) are called "surplus" in insurance accounting, and is functionally equivalent to "owners equity" in basic accounting.

Ah yes, I remember now.  Yeah, that makes sense.  Well, about as much sense as someone saying "I have a big pile of cash in my wheelbarrow", and the other guy telling him "that's quite a liability you have there".  But I get it.  Dude can't spend any of that wheelbarrow cash, it's all stuff he'll have to pay out at some time.  But he can invest it, which is why I struggle at thinking of it as a liability.

 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The problem is that once the reserves became too high (and yes, that is a thing), it failed to make a course correction.

"Too high" according to whom?  I mean, yes, I know it's according to lots of humans, because it was taught to them by people who also believe it.  

 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It uses most of its income to purchase income-producing assets. It does this because it has no vision of doing something better with the money. What real-world benefit does the Church get for this? Nothing, beyond the thrill of having it. Hamba Tuhan gets that thrill, and I suspect that at least a few people in the Church hierarchy do as well.

Hoarding, obscene, no vision.  These are unrighteous judgments on your part.  You don't know what their vision is.  You suspect a thrill, does that mean you allow for the possibility that there's something going on in their heads and hearts instead of the thrill of having assets?

 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Ten billion in reserves is a solid number that would ensure the Church, if properly run, could thrive for a thousand years.

Heh.  Based on what historical precedent?  Can you name a few entities in the course of human history that have lasted for a thousand years?  This Wiki article has a pretty interesting list, but they're all small entities like breweries, hotels, and restaurants.  A couple sellers of religious goods, which are pretty interesting.   The oldest bank is only half a century old.  What absolute hubris people have when it comes to predicting the future.   I mean, I get it - human business practices find the church's wealth misallocated.  My answer remains.  Go start your own church that will exist for a thousand years, and do whatever you want with the tithes.  Leave us alone, we're mormoning over here.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I think souls are worth more than the value of EPA's assets. That is why I think people should follow the Church's example and build up their own savings as much as possible. 

True!

[Eschaton]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I do.

I think the takeaway is that we can infer from the Church's actions that the refrain to "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust and market crashes doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" is no longer applicable in the 21st century, and that prudence dictates that we should all do our best to build up significant savings.

 

 

I think every Christian church has been challenged by the teachings of the historical Jesus. None of them has really lived up to his challenging messages- and I don't know any individual who has lived up to them in their own personal lives, myself included. 

Living a life of voluntary homelessness and poverty, living by begging, eschewing family relationships in favor of relationships in an itinerant religious community, not resisting violence or defending yourself against it - that's a hard sell. So instead of doing the hard things, we do the easy things, which is mostly name-dropping Jesus and ignoring a lot of what he taught. I don't really blame anyone for that - Jesus' ideas were radical and they really don't work if your aim is to create a sustained, long-term community. They do work if you're preparing for an immanent kingdom of God to arrive and injustice to soon be overthrown. But the kingdom didn't come, so his followers had to settle for a church instead. 

[gav]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It's the combination of having a ton of money and no plan to use it to provide any value to anybody that conjures up visions of Scrooge McDuck.

How certain are you of the bolded part and what do you base that certainty on?

[gav]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

A general question for all: do you believe the investment people for your church pray for and receive revelation on when to buy and sell stock? Is the wealth of your church a piece of evidence that your church is run by Christ?

Nope and Nope

[CV75]

27 minutes ago, Eschaton said:

 

I think every Christian church has been challenged by the teachings of the historical Jesus. None of them has really lived up to his challenging messages- and I don't know any individual who has lived up to them in their own personal lives, myself included. 

Living a life of voluntary homelessness and poverty, living by begging, eschewing family relationships in favor of relationships in an itinerant religious community, not resisting violence or defending yourself against it - that's a hard sell. So instead of doing the hard things, we do the easy things, which is mostly name-dropping Jesus and ignoring a lot of what he taught. I don't really blame anyone for that - Jesus' ideas were radical and they really don't work if your aim is to create a sustained, long-term community. They do work if you're preparing for an immanent kingdom of God to arrive and injustice to soon be overthrown. But the kingdom didn't come, so his followers had to settle for a church instead. 

His kingdom didn't come (yet); it died first, which is part of the plan and process suggested by John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Nothing wrong with death, it is a natural part of progress and ultimately swallowed up in Christ -- sometimes after the kingdom comes in one way (restoration) and later comes again in successively advancing other ways (Millennium, Celestializing, Church of the Firstborn, Exaltation, etc.) as suggested by D&C 88:46-61.

[MiserereNobis]

36 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Can you name a few entities in the course of human history that have lasted for a thousand years?

The Catholic Church. The papacy is one of, if not the, oldest institutions still in existence today. And yeah, we've got lots of money  

[Amulek]

6 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

The papacy is one of, if not the, oldest institutions still in existence today. And yeah, we've got lots of money  

And, much like our church, you don't get to just turn people away if they've got preexisting conditions.

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Amulek

[ttribe]

50 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Heh.  Based on what historical precedent?  Can you name a few entities in the course of human history that have lasted for a thousand years?  This Wiki article has a pretty interesting list, but they're all small entities like breweries, hotels, and restaurants.  A couple sellers of religious goods, which are pretty interesting.   The oldest bank is only half a century old.  What absolute hubris people have when it comes to predicting the future.   I mean, I get it - human business practices find the church's wealth misallocated.  My answer remains.  Go start your own church that will exist for a thousand years, and do whatever you want with the tithes.  Leave us alone, we're mormoning over here.

"Half a century"? (emphasis added). A century is only 100 years. BMPS has been around for 550 years.

https://www.oldest.org/structures/banks/

Edited January 13, 2023 by ttribe

[ttribe]

17 minutes ago, gav said:

How certain are you of the bolded part and what do you base that certainty on?

It may be a bit of hyperbole, but the fact is the Church has a long history of making public its charity and welfare plans (e.g. Perpetual Education Fund). To my knowledge there has been no public statement as to intent of use for the "rainy day fund" other than vague generalities.

[Eschaton]

46 minutes ago, CV75 said:

His kingdom didn't come (yet); it died first, which is part of the plan and process suggested by John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Nothing wrong with death, it is a natural part of progress and ultimately swallowed up in Christ -- sometimes after the kingdom comes in one way (restoration) and later comes again in successively advancing other ways (Millennium, Celestializing, Church of the Firstborn, Exaltation, etc.) as suggested by D&C 88:46-61.

I was careful to refer to the Jesus of history, rather than the theological Jesus constructed a couple of generations later by various Christian communities of the late first century and beyond. 

For the historical Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the end to all injustice. It was a physical, political kingdom, and it would grow up and push out the wicked kingdoms ruled by those obsessed by wealth and power. God would intervene, in conjunction with the actions of those in Jesus' movement and in John the Baptist's movement. It didn't happen, the original Jewish eschatological social justice movement (a loose group headed by wandering preachers like John and Jesus) died out, replaced by an increasingly Hellenized Christianity. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Eschaton

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

Interesting; thank you. The Lord’s statement about treasures in earth and heaven are more about where your heart is (“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”): you can have a treasure in heaven where your heart is, and that will drive the treatment of your treasure on earth, the “replenish the earth, and subdue it” part of the command in the Garden of Eden, and that is the opposite of 3 Nephi 27:32 (“sell me for silver and for gold, and for that which moth doth corrupt and which thieves can break through and steal.”). The Church is bound to lose money once in a while, even while subduing it with a heart in heaven, simply because of the way the treasures in earth work.

Hmm.  Seems like a personal interpretation to justify some things in your mind.  But where your heart is will drive what your behavior is.

[Analytics]

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Ah yes, I remember now.  Yeah, that makes sense.  Well, about as much sense as someone saying "I have a big pile of cash in my wheelbarrow", and the other guy telling him "that's quite a liability you have there".  But I get it.  Dude can't spend any of that wheelbarrow cash, it's all stuff he'll have to pay out at some time.  But he can invest it, which is why I struggle at thinking of it as a liability.

Yea, insurance nomenclature is extremely unfortunate. But to emphasize the point, the reserves are the liabilities themselves, regardless of whether there is a pile of cash in the wheelbarrow. If we want to be technically correct, somebody might comment about a big pile of cash in the wheelbarrow, and I'd respond, "yes, that is a mighty impressive stack of assets. However, those assets back the reserves for these insurance policies, so we need to handle them carefully with those obligations in mind."

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

"Too high" according to whom?  I mean, yes, I know it's according to lots of humans, because it was taught to them by people who also believe it.  

These ideas aren't ultimately arbitrary things humans made up. A basic principle of economics is that resources are scarce and that we have to maximize everybody's wellbeing (i.e. their "utility", another unfortunate word, this time from economics) by making tradeoffs. Because of the diminishing marginal value of different things, the way to maximize utility is to make tradeoffs--you don't use all of your resources to produce guns, and you don't use all of your resources to produce butter. Utility will likely be maximized by coming to an optimal balance between the two.

This principle applies to risk in a direct way. At some point, stashing away even more money into an already excessive "rainy-day fund" just isn't worth the cost. If you make $100,000 a year after taxes, but live on $40,000 and put the remaining $60,000 into a "rainy-day fund" that already has $10,000,000 in it, it might be worth thinking about whether you should save less so that your kids can finally start taking piano lessons, or save less so you can give more to a worthwhile cause, or save less so you can finally take a vacation, or save less so that you can spend the money on any number of things that would be more worthwhile than hoarding it.

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Hoarding, obscene, no vision.  These are unrighteous judgments on your part.

No, they are accurate evaluations of the situation by somebody who knows what he is talking about.

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

  You don't know what their vision is.

Actually, I do in fact know that they don't have a vision. Beyond upgrading Salt Lake City with a conference center and a shopping mall, they don't have a driving vision to do anything differently with their money, and don't have the courage to meddle with the tactics N. Eldon Tanner set up 60 years ago.

I might know about their lack of vision that because they refuse to articulate it and you can tell by how they operate. And I might know about their lack of vision from insider information I may or may not possess. I can't comment on that. 

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 You suspect a thrill, does that mean you allow for the possibility that there's something going on in their heads and hearts instead of the thrill of having assets?

Since you asked, I do in fact have the power of discernment. Their heads are primarily filled with lack of vision, lack of revelation, groupthink, and conservatism morphing into fear. They distract themselves from those things by admiring how big the hoard is.

13 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Heh.  Based on what historical precedent?  Can you name a few entities in the course of human history that have lasted for a thousand years?

I don't think it makes sense to forecast the next thousand years by looking at the prior thousand years.

If something were to happen in the next thousand years that could cause the Church to stop existing, having more shares of Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon won't save it.

[Analytics]

35 minutes ago, gav said:

How certain are you of the bolded part [no plan to use it to provide any value to anybody] and what do you base that certainty on?

Certain is a strong word, and I admit what I said was hyperbolic. To be fair, they are now under intense pressure to stop kicking the can down the road, and they are now planning on ramping up charitable giving. But as we discussed on the other thread, giving away money in a responsible way is hard, and I just don't see them having the guts to ramp it up on a scale comparable to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; doing things that big just isn't in their DNA.

But I'd love to be proven wrong.

[Analytics]

29 minutes ago, ttribe said:

"Half a century"? (emphasis added). A century is only 100 years. BMPS has been around for 550 years.

https://www.oldest.org/structures/banks/

Hopefully he meant half a millennium? 

[Calm]

41 minutes ago, ttribe said:

It may be a bit of hyperbole, but the fact is the Church has a long history of making public its charity and welfare plans (e.g. Perpetual Education Fund). To my knowledge there has been no public statement as to intent of use for the "rainy day fund" other than vague generalities.

Some of its plans are made public, not all.  I became aware of some pretty extensive work through a couple of private conversations with individuals involved with the programs that I have never seen publicized.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Calm

[rodheadlee]

They could have a rainy day like California with its atmospheric Rivers. In other words a long period of rainy days.

[manol]

2 hours ago, Eschaton said:

For the historical Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the end to all injustice.

It looks to me like Jesus taught not only the ending of acts of injustice, he also taught ending even the perception of injustice on the part of the recipients of those acts!  Imo THIS concept is "new wine", and arguably even "good news" having paradigm-shifting theological implications.

2 hours ago, Eschaton said:

So instead of doing the hard things, we do the easy things, which is mostly name-dropping Jesus and ignoring a lot of what he taught.

Agreed.  It is far less demanding to believe something about Jesus than to actually believe Jesus, because then we might have to re-draw our road maps.

Edited January 13, 2023 by manol

[JAHS]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

A general question for all: do you believe the investment people for your church pray for and receive revelation on when to buy and sell stock? Is the wealth of your church a piece of evidence that your church is run by Christ?

Not for when to buy or sell. I suppose they might only pray in general terms that they will do their jobs in a manner that will be of benefit to the welfare of the Church.
The monetary wealth of the Church really has nothing to do with whether it is run by Christ or not. It is simply something that is required in order to operate in this world.
The evidence of its real wealth is reflected by the level of faithfulness of the members of the Church.

[ttribe]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

Some of its plans are made public, not all.  I became aware of some pretty extensive work through a couple of private conversations with individuals involved with the programs that I have never seen publicized.

Fair enough, but the facts in this case are as follows: 1) the massive size of this investment fund was made public only recently; and 2) in response to inevitable questions and criticisms, the response from the Church thus far can be summarize as "It's saving for a rainy day." As I see it, the assumption @Analytics presented in his analysis is not unreasonable.

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Eschaton said:

I was careful to refer to the Jesus of history, rather than the theological Jesus constructed a couple of generations later by various Christian communities of the late first century and beyond. 

For the historical Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the end to all injustice. It was a physical, political kingdom, and it would grow up and push out the wicked kingdoms ruled by those obsessed by wealth and power. God would intervene, in conjunction with the actions of those in Jesus' movement and in John the Baptist's movement. It didn't happen, the original Jewish eschatological social justice movement (a loose group headed by wandering preachers like John and Jesus) died out, replaced by an increasingly Hellenized Christianity. 

Yes, I noted that and thought I'd comment from a doctrinal perspective. As I invited Analytics to do after he shared his business perspective, what is the message you would like to get across in relation to the Gospel (the message consisting of what benefits your life and would benefit others reading your historical analysis)?

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Hmm.  Seems like a personal interpretation to justify some things in your mind.  But where your heart is will drive what your behavior is.

Exactly, where your heart is will drive what your behavior is.

Edited January 13, 2023 by CV75

[Teancum]

22 hours ago, CV75 said:

Exactly, where your heart is will drive what your behavior is.

Sure.  So the heart of the church leaders is wealth and that drives their behavior. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Teancum