Not Tithing Funds (ii)

[Analytics]

On 5/9/2024 at 1:25 PM, bluebell said:

Sincerely asking, how would any of us know? 

Sean Carroll explains it as follows:

Quote

Whenever we are confronted with questions about belief, we can employ the technique called abduction, or “inference to the best explanation.” Abduction is a type of reasoning that can be contrasted with deduction and induction. With deduction, we start with some axioms whose truth we do not question, and derive rigorously necessary conclusions from them. With induction, we start with some examples we know about, and generalize to a wider context—rigorously, if we have some reason for believing that such a generalization is always correct, but often we don’t quite have that guarantee. With abduction, by contrast, we take all of our background knowledge about how the world works, and perhaps some preference for simple explanations over complex ones (Occam’s razor), and decide what possible explanation provides the best account of all the facts we have.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 40-41). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

[Analytics]

A few years ago, I was working on a consulting project for an extremely large organization that had a budget of many billions of dollars. At the end of the project, I was given an audience with a senior executive of the HR department in an all day meeting with him, his staff, and a few other consultants I was working with. At the end of the meeting, I made a pitch on how to solve a major problem they had. My proposed solution was bold, innovative, and would have totally fixed the problem. But it was risky--it was something nobody else had done before. After my pitch, the senior executive said, “no, we aren’t going to do that.” I asked why not; what part of my logic did he disagree with? He said "nothing in particular." I asked why he wouldn’t consider it then. He simply said this:

“I’m not convinced."

And that was that. The meeting ended. I went home. Life went on. 

On another thread, somebody asked me to explain my beliefs about something, and I made a good-faith effort to answer the question. I didn’t expect anybody to be convinced that I was right, but I did think that maybe somebody might understand me a little better. 

@smac97 could have carefully considered my arguments and read the books I recommended. He could have debated me about my arguments. He could have asked clarifying questions and tried to understand me. Or he could have totally ignored it. Or he could have said “I’m not convinced.” But instead, he made an unprovoked personal attack against me--in a single post that was 13 pages when printed out, he went on a rant about how he doesn’t take me seriously. And one of his primary pieces of evidence was the topic of this thread and his claim that he had proven I misremembered the conversations from 2012 and 2015. 

The truth is I was mostly right in everything I said back then--far more right than what the vast majority of apologists were saying. And the truth is I remembered the conversation very well. And the truth is I’m still right now. “Tithing” means donations made to the church that are designated as tithing. Of course--nobody disputes that. And principle and interest are two different things. Of course. Nobody disputes that. But interest on principle does in fact come into existence because the principle was invested in the first place; if there is no principle, there can be no interest. That is what “indirect” means, and that is the specific thing we were discussing back then.

And with that, I close my case.

Edited May 11, 2024 by Analytics

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Sean Carroll explains it as follows:

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 40-41). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

I understand abduction.  I just don't think we have enough facts, or personal experience with Pahoran on the issue, to reasonably abduct his reasons for why he came to a specific conclusion that he did.  When you don't have enough information to work with it's not abduction, it's assumption.  

I think this is especially true when we take into consideration biases, which naturally interfere with conclusions that come from incomplete information (whether we use induction, deduction, or abduction).

Edited May 11, 2024 by bluebell

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I understand abduction.  I just don't think we have enough facts, or personal experience with Pahoran on the issue, to reasonably abduct his reasons for why he came to a specific conclusion that he did.  When you don't have enough information to work with it's not abduction, it's assumption.  

I think this is especially true when we take into consideration biases, which naturally interfere with conclusions that come from incomplete information (whether we use induction, deduction, or abduction).

What he said then is consistent with and representative of what most Latter-Day Saints were saying in those threads, including you.

Feel free to reach out to him if you want. 

Edited May 11, 2024 by Analytics

[SeekingUnderstanding]

57 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Feel free to reach out to him if you want. 

I was curious so I googled his real name (which he posted under after a ban). He’s quite active over on quora. 

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

What he said then is consistent with and representative of what most Latter-Day Saints were saying in those threads, including you.

Feel free to reach out to him if you want. 

I don't want to.  It really doesn't matter to me.  It seems to matter to you--it seems like why he said what he said is the one of your main points--but it doesn't seem like you are interested in reaching out to him either.  Which is fine. 

But, can you provide the reference where I said that I was confident that if you traced the genealogy of the money that was used to fund the mall, it wouldn’t go back to tithing?  It's not a formal CFR but I'd like to know since I don't remember ever saying or believing that.

[Analytics]

42 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't want to.  It really doesn't matter to me.  It seems to matter to you--it seems like why he said what he said is the one of your main points--but it doesn't seem like you are interested in reaching out to him either.  Which is fine. 

I think what he said was clear and was consistent with what most apologists were saying at the time..

42 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But, can you provide the reference where I said that I was confident that if you traced the genealogy of the money that was used to fund the mall, it wouldn’t go back to tithing?  It's not a formal CFR but I'd like to know since I don't remember ever saying or believing that.

On June 18th, 2015, I wrote a post expressing my belief that the Church was in fact systematically saving for a rainy day and my belief that this would result in a massive accumulation of wealth that could be tapped into to help fund the mall. I said, "So when the Church says, "no tithing money was used," the meaning of that isn't clear; if the Church has any tithing money saved in a stock or bond issued by one of the Church's for-profit businesses, and if that for-profit business used any of its resources to fund the project in question, there is a direct connection between the tithing dollar and the fungible resources of the for-profit entity."

If I said that now, I would expect everyone to say "no, tithing ceases being tithing the moment it is paid, therefore there isn’t a connection between interest and principal."

Back then, you responded by saying:

Quote

I'm not sure if you read the post in this thread by the person who actually worked as an accountant for the Church.  They explain how the church really doesn't have the chance to put much tithing away in a rainy day fund.  Probably not more than would keep the church running for a few months.  I'm also guessing that they would keep such a fund pretty liquid.

The post you thought was authoritative was written by kimpearson on June 15, 2015 and said:

Quote

I am a CPA who has actually worked with the Church on money issues...

The original source of funds for these businesses came primarily from the businesses that the Church established in the late 1800's and early 1900's including ZCMI, U&I Sugar, an Insurance company and a bank.  This entity also owned significant real estate that was sold.  Over the years the Church has actively managed these businesses.  Towards the end of the twentieth century, the Church sold its ownership in many of these businesses and kept only a few that aligned with the purpose of the Church.  As you can imagine, these sales generated significant cash.  These are the source of funds used to finance City Creek....

Kim Pearson was saying essentially the same thing that Pahoran was saying, and you found his post to be authoritative.

[Stormin' Mormon]

On 5/11/2024 at 5:38 AM, Analytics said:

Let's take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion and see if you are being consistent. Hypothetically, let’s assume the Church has $150 billion in commercial assets that generates $10 billion a year in interest. And let’s assume that every year it takes in $8 billion in tithing, and has total expenses of $7 billion to run the Church. Using these numbers, would it be accurate to say that right now, “no tithing funds are used” to run the Church and that 100% of tithing is used to build the size of Ensign Peak Advisor’s portfolio of commercial assets? 

I don't think you could say that.  In fund accounting, the color of money matters (this is a common metaphor used in fund accounting; it's not something I'm making up for the purposes of this discussion). 

Call it green dollars and red dollars, where the green dollars can be spent on anything, but red dollars can only be spent on specific, enumerated activities.  The $8 billion generated from tithing are red dollars, and the $10 billion generated in interest are green dollars.  Thereafter, when spending on activities that are eligible for red dollars, best practices is to use the red dollars first and only then use the green dollars if there's not enough red dollars to cover the costs. Yes, it's possible for the Church to run its operations entirely on green money, but such would not be a wise use of those funds. 

And because you can't indiscriminately mix red and green dollars, those distinctions don't go away, even when invested.  When red money is invested, it remains red money, although the generated interest is green.  In the government and non-profit organizations I've worked for, interest on investments have always appeared in the annual budgets as green money, even when the investments were made using red money.

The claim that "no tithing money was used for City Creek" is tantamount to saying "no red money was used for City Creek."  Which, in fund accounting, is a real and meaningful distinction.  There's no hypocrisy, no inconsistency.

Usual caveats: I'm not an accountant, but I have been adjacent to government and fund accounting for most of my professional career.  In fact, I've had so much exposure to fund accounting and so little exposure to any other sort of accounting or finance disciplines, that until recently, I had assumed that this was the normal and expected way of keeping the books.  

[bluebell]

On 5/11/2024 at 5:16 PM, Analytics said:

I think what he said was clear and was consistent with what most apologists were saying at the time..

On June 18th, 2015, I wrote a post expressing my belief that the Church was in fact systematically saving for a rainy day and my belief that this would result in a massive accumulation of wealth that could be tapped into to help fund the mall. I said, "So when the Church says, "no tithing money was used," the meaning of that isn't clear; if the Church has any tithing money saved in a stock or bond issued by one of the Church's for-profit businesses, and if that for-profit business used any of its resources to fund the project in question, there is a direct connection between the tithing dollar and the fungible resources of the for-profit entity."

If I said that now, I would expect everyone to say "no, tithing ceases being tithing the moment it is paid, therefore there isn’t a connection between interest and principal."

Back then, you responded by saying:

The post you thought was authoritative was written by kimpearson on June 15, 2015 and said:

Kim Pearson was saying essentially the same thing that Pahoran was saying, and you found his post to be authoritative.

I've been trying to figure this post out for a couple of days but I'm still not exactly sure I'm understanding your correctly.

Believing that kimpearson had some relevant information about the amount of tithing the church was bringing and then using doesn't mean that I find everything they said was authoritative or agreed with it.  To be fair, I doubt I disagreed with it either.  I probably filed it away as interesting information.  Beyond that, your quote of me doesn't, in my view, equal the belief that only the money from the sale of ZCMI was used to build the mall.  

But maybe I'm not making a connection that you've made.

[ttribe]

2 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I don't think you could say that.  In fund accounting, the color of money matters (this is a common metaphor used in fund accounting; it's not something I'm making up for the purposes of this discussion). 

Call it green dollars and red dollars, where the green dollars can be spent on anything, but red dollars can only be spent on specific, enumerated activities.  The $8 billion generated from tithing are red dollars, and the $10 billion generated in interest are green dollars.  Thereafter, when spending on activities that are eligible for red dollars, best practices is to use the red dollars first and only then use the green dollars if there's not enough red dollars to cover the costs. Yes, it's possible for the Church to run its operations entirely on green money, but such would not be a wise use of those funds. 

And because you can't indiscriminately mix red and green dollars, those distinctions don't go away, even when invested.  When red money is invested, it remains red money, although the generated interest is green.  In the government and non-profit organizations I've worked for, interest on investments have always appeared in the annual budgets as green money, even when the investments were made using red money.

The claim that "no tithing money was used for City Creek" is tantamount to saying "no red money was used for City Creek."  Which, in fund accounting, is a real and meaningful distinction.  There's no hypocrisy, no inconsistency.

Usual caveats: I'm not an accountant, but I have been adjacent to government and fund accounting for most of my professional career.  In fact, I've had so much exposure to fund accounting and so little exposure to any other sort of accounting or finance disciplines, that until recently, I had assumed that this was the normal and expected way of keeping the books.  

Quoting myself from earlier in the thread:

On 5/8/2024 at 2:49 PM, ttribe said:

While I have little to no doubt that the Church, as an entity, utilizes a fund accounting system, I also have little to no doubt that Ensign Peak does NOT use fund accounting. The question remains whether the interplay between the two systems keeps things straight. I suspect they do, else the Church would have very little ground to stand on with assertions regarding the uses of its monies, but we are in the realm of speculation given we have no available information.