If I won the lottery would the Church accept tithing on that?

[Rain]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Also, iirc, back in the 80 or 90s the Church used (I say “used” because I am not sure it was Church produced, they used to use/allowed in the ward libraries a few nonChurch produced video series, one I remember was a Bible reenactment series) a series against things like Pornography and Gambling focusing on the social side of it and being civicly active in trying to discourage them (I think, I never watched them, just read the summaries as a ward librarian).  

Do you think it was the church allowing those things in libraries or libraries just having them?  When I became librarian (around 2000) there were so very many things in our ward library that the CHI did not allow. I brought these kind of things up with the stake librarian and she told me the handbook was for wards (outside of Utah). In that calling and another calling I found so many had not read the handbook concerning things they were involved in.

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Also when the lottery came to Alberta, I remember there being a big push from church leadership (local at least, possibly with direction from Salt Lake as that was my understanding at the time, but I can’t remember why and I was probably more likely to assume SL leadership back then over locals deciding on their own to get involved in a politics cause).

I see the Church as having been much more outspoken about gambling in the past.  It is possible in my view the handbook has changed on this.

 

[Rain]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Still teaching it as a desire to get something for nothing (I am not sure that is completely true as some I know feel they deserve winning, they have earned winning because of hardships, suffering in their lives, they see it as only fair if the universe is going to shaft them at some time, they get really lucky as well).

I've always wondered about this. Does that mean those leaders were against entering contests that don't cost you anything. For example, one day I walked into a movie theater. When there someone had a wheel to spin.  I spun it and won...something, I don't remember what. I definitely got something for nothing. So was that considered morally wrong by the church?

14 hours ago, Calm said:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/gambling?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1985/10/questions-and-answers?lang=eng

 

[Rain]

14 hours ago, ttribe said:

Ask Andy Biggs. He won the lottery and became a congressman with his winnings. No idea if he paid tithing on his winnings.

Seriously? I had no idea. That's too funny for so many reasons. 

[Doctor Steuss]

12 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 has entered the chat.

 

Thread being locked for violating the no politics rule in 5...

 

That's a nice picture of Brigham Young.

[Rain]

11 hours ago, bluebell said:

I don't know how restaurant owners do it!  That is such a hard industry.  My heart feels so much for your friend.  We owned a business years ago that didn't make it and it caused us to file for bankruptcy.  For a solid five years after that life was really hard and my husband especially struggled mentally.  It's not something you easily bounce back from.  I hope your friend can find new success and have hope again in good things to come.

 

I saw what my dad went through and it was enough to never want to do a business in our family. Dad was actually able to sell it to another business, but I'm sure for not much. That business probably did better with it as it expanded their line. It's definitely not easy to have a small business and requires a personality and skills that many people don't have. 

[Rain]

14 hours ago, ttribe said:

Ask Andy Biggs. He won the lottery and became a congressman with his winnings. No idea if he paid tithing on his winnings.

Just checked. Wikipedia says, " In 1993, he won $10 million in the American Family Publishers sweepstakes." Not the lottery. 

[Doctor Steuss]

50 minutes ago, Rain said:

I saw what my dad went through and it was enough to never want to do a business in our family. Dad was actually able to sell it to another business, but I'm sure for not much. That business probably did better with it as it expanded their line. It's definitely not easy to have a small business and requires a personality and skills that many people don't have. 

It's so easy to forget all of the curveballs that mom-and-pop type businesses have thrown at them regularly.

My friend who owns the pair of restaurants just joined forces with a few other local restaurants to file a lawsuit against Uber Eats, because Uber Eats keeps allowing other restaurants to create listings under his and other restaurant names.  His restaurants don't allow any delivery or pick-up, and won't partner with any services, so it came as quite the shock the first time someone left a Google review complaining about their delivery order.

I can't even begin to imagine the stress endured collectively during COVID by small (and privately held larger) business owners.

I would never be able to endure the stress.  I'm content with my 9-5 (or 7-3, rather, because traffic sucks, but my boss is awesome sauce).

Edited May 29, 2024 by Doctor Steuss

[rodheadlee]

What if you just buy 1 lottery ticket per month? That's not really gambling. After I lose the I tell myself "and God said " thou shalt toil in the land""

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

When I became librarian (around 2000) there were so very many things in our ward library that the CHI did not allow.

Pretty sure those were in the Church Distribution older catalogue (I was making a database for all library materials ever listed in church catalogs since I found out through my nephew that was never going to happen by the Church for some reason even though each library was supposedly supposed to assemble their own for members to be able to use for checking out, which would be a massive effort if done right with summaries and scripture and lesson references and besides several years of old Church catalogues I had collected, I had tracked down a BYU master’s thesis that did much of the work up to about 5 or 10 years prior and had the author send me a copy….it got lost in the move from Canada though and too much stuff was going on by then to reconstruct all my work), but going off memory here and we know how perfect that is.  😛 

Quote

In that calling and another calling I found so many had not read the handbook concerning things they were involved in.

Yep.  I never understood that.  It was the first thing I did in every calling, read the handbook and go through all the materials that had been passed on to me and cull nonapproved material (though I wasn’t as ruthless when I was in my 20s as I was in my 40s).

Edited May 29, 2024 by Calm

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, Doctor Steuss said:

It's so easy to forget all of the curveballs that mom-and-pop type businesses have thrown at them regularly.

My friend who owns the pair of restaurants just joined forces with a few other local restaurants to file a lawsuit against Uber Eats, because Uber Eats keeps allowing other restaurants to create listings under his and other restaurant names.  His restaurants don't allow any delivery or pick-up, and won't partner with any services, so it came as quite the shock the first time someone left a Google review complaining about their delivery order.

I can't even begin to imagine the stress endured collectively during COVID by small (and privately held larger) business owners.

Have tried telling your friend that when he has a good year, he's just stealing his employee's unrealized wages, and instead he should make sure he adjusts their compensation fairly to reflect the true value of their work?  That might help.

[Doctor Steuss]

11 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Have tried telling your friend that when he has a good year, he's just stealing his employee's unrealized wages, and instead he should make sure he adjusts their compensation fairly to reflect the true value of their work?  That might help.

I could.  But, since he's a leftist who already pays his employees well above industry standard, provides full benefits, and took almost a decade to be able to open his second restaurant (despite being an award winning world renown chef, who has consulted for shows like Hell's Kitchen) because of his commitment to making sure that the rising tide raises all ships instead of just his own, it might seem kind of silly.

Next time he's downtown feeding the homeless with me though, I'll bring it up.

Edited May 29, 2024 by Doctor Steuss

[ttribe]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

Just checked. Wikipedia says, " In 1993, he won $10 million in the American Family Publishers sweepstakes." Not the lottery. 

Ahhh, that's right. Close enough.

[LoudmouthMormon]

33 minutes ago, Doctor Steuss said:

43 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Have tried telling your friend that when he has a good year, he's just stealing his employee's unrealized wages, and instead he should make sure he adjusts their compensation fairly to reflect the true value of their work?  That might help.

I could.  But, since he's a leftist who already pays his employees well above industry standard, provides full benefits, and took almost a decade to be able to open his second restaurant (despite being an award winning world renown chef, who has consulted for shows like Hell's Kitchen) because of his commitment to making sure that the rising tide raises all ships instead of just his own, it might seem kind of silly.

Next time he's downtown feeding the homeless with me though, I'll bring it up.

Wait - are you saying he gets a pass from your wage theft arguments, because he pays a bit more than average and occasionally slings hash at the soup kitchen?  I mean, he sounds like a great boss who treats his employees fairly, possibly better than average.  But earlier you were giving the talking points of someone who is against the notion of "boss".

All sarcasm aside, I'm always interested in hearing from folks like you and your restaurant-owning leftist friend discussing the sins inherent in a private property owning capitalist system.  

I recognize your "le sigh" admission earlier.  I have an anarchist buddy from college who pays taxes and has a mortgage.  I'm guessing your good-boss-leftie buddy might have a similar admission.  But no really, I'm interested in his thoughts as much as yours.

 

Edited May 29, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[Doctor Steuss]

5 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Wait - are you saying he gets a pass from your wage theft arguments, because he pays a bit more than average and occasionally slings hash at the soup kitchen?  I mean, he sounds like a great boss who treats his employees fairly, possibly better than average.  But earlier you were giving the talking points of someone who is against the notion of "boss".

All sarcasm aside, I'm always interested in hearing from folks like you and your restaurant-owning leftist friend discussing the sins inherent in a private property owning capitalist system.  

I recognize your "le sigh" admission earlier.  I have an anarchist buddy from college who pays taxes and has a mortgage.  I'm guessing your good-boss-leftie buddy might have a similar admission.  But no really, I'm interested in his thoughts as much as yours.

 

99% of people get a pass from my opinion that profiting off someone else's labor inherently means you paid them less than the true value of said labor.  Such is life living as a human, in human created systems, where we generally have an evolutionary pull to prioritize our own immediate selves and tribal groups over others.

I do my best, and encourage others to do their best.  I get taken advantage often, and I have likely taken advantage of others (for which I hope I've been forgiven of, and made amends somehow).  Overall I try to live my life by the example provided by my LDS great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents, to be as generous as possible without compromising my own commitments, only give money as a gift (never expect repayment), and try to find comfort that when I am taken advantage of that they likely needed what I had more than I do, and I'm fortunate that I was able to provide excess (even if begrudgingly and unwittingly).

Beyond that, I'm largely a centrist, and have no ideological purity to any type of "ism" or "ist" because the moment I do that, I have boxed myself in from accepting the good from without those things and I'm left to defend the bad within them.  I am blessed to have friends across the spectrum of belief, faith, socioeconomic status, political ideology, etc.  It's possible to value the advantages of capitalism, while simultaneously seeing the inherent failures within it.  I try not to create gods out of the systems that humans have cobbled together.  Those types of gods tend to never show up to the summoning ceremonies, and have a tendency to be a wee bit smite heavy in how they handle my existence.

[Calm]

14 hours ago, bluebell said:

don't know how restaurant owners do it!  That is such a hard industry.

My husband the retired business prof tells me that most restaurants peak in the first year or so and then steadily go downhill unless there is a way to build up a loyal set of locals and even then it’s hard.  Most of the time they have to keep reinventing themselves.  Some long time restaurants maintain enough profit by legacy.  Franchises have the benefit of familiarity and awareness.

[Rain]

57 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Ahhh, that's right. Close enough.

I'm no fan of his by any means, but in this context I wouldn't really count it as close enough. True he would have "gambled" with the cost of a stamp in 1993, but entering a drawing isn't really the same as buying a lottery ticket - unless as calm has mentioned the problem of gambling is getting something for nothing. Which is kind of ironic because then the drawings/sweepstakes would be worse than gambling since you actually do put money down with gambling.

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

My husband the retired business prof tells me that most restaurants peak in the first year or so and then steadily go downhill unless there is a way to build up a loyal set of locals and even then it’s hard.  Most of the time they have to keep reinventing themselves.  Some long time restaurants maintain enough profit by legacy.  Franchises have the benefit of familiarity and awareness.

I believe it. And from the number of food trucks that I see for sale I’m guessing those are also more difficult than some people assume they will be.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Doctor Steuss said:

But, since he's a leftist who already pays his employees well above industry standard, provides full benefits…

Next time he's downtown feeding the homeless with me though, I'll bring it up.

 

51 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

are you saying he gets a pass from your wage theft arguments, because he pays a bit more than average and occasionally slings hash at the soup kitchen

Hardly an accurate representation of what the Doctor said.  I know you said it in jest, but I really dislike it when there is obviously intentional misrepresentation of what people say (and not just misunderstanding) even when claiming it’s for fun.  It is so unfair.

[LoudmouthMormon]

It's a fair cop, @Calm.  

But even if I went on adjective overload and applied the most glowingly wonderful words to the person in question, my overall point would remain.  A point which I believe @Doctor Steuss addressed with maturity and genuine transparency.  I mean, my opinion remains unchanged, but it's nice when we can understand each other's positions.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[manol]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

This risk generally has a physical and mental and possibly emotional stress on owners (such as worrying over what happens to their employees if the company folds even if short term) that has a cost on the person...

I used to be part owner and an employee of a small, independent oil and gas producing business.  Over the course of about twelve years (starting in 1986) we had to reduce our workforce from twenty-something down to a half-dozen due to low oil prices.  This was traumatic for me.  I absolutely hated laying people off when they had done nothing wrong and had worked their butts off for us for years (aside from this, we had incredibly low field-employee turn-over for that industry).  I moved myself and the office into a tiny one-room apartment.  Eventually something happened which forced me to shut the business down entirely (complicated story that would be an unnecessary tangent). 

I left that industry and within a couple of years started a small business in another.  This time, no employees.  It's been just me for twenty-something years, and that's all it will ever be. There is theoretically room for growth but I don't want to go into debt and risk somebody else's money.  But mainly I never want to be in the position of laying off employees or asking them to take a pay cut ever again.  Not claiming this is rational on my part; just confirming what @Calm said in the part I quoted. 

Edited May 29, 2024 by manol

[ksfisher]

6 minutes ago, manol said:

It's been just me for twenty-something years, and that's all it will ever be.

My father would say that he worked for the best boss he'd ever had.

Same kind of situation

[manol]

2 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

My father would say that he worked for the best boss he'd ever had.

Same kind of situation

Well my boss is an idiot, but I like the dress code. 

[ksfisher]

34 minutes ago, manol said:

Well my boss is an idiot, but I like the dress code. 

A relaxed dress code is an important part of employee retention as far as I'm concerned.

[Vanguard]

Well, this is probably a digression from the current exchange but I've been thinking about it for several days. What is the difference that makes the difference between playing the state/national lottery with ponying up money at a high school football game raffle for the chance of winning the drawing prize?

Full Disclosure: I LOVE the lottery. I've traveled from the SL valley up to Evanston just to get a few tickets (I know, I know, I get it...). I have behind my eye balls the most elaborate plans for what I would do with '$300 million' - plans that substantially include much community improvement though admittedly would involve my own material benefit... ; ) 

[ksfisher]

35 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

I've traveled from the SL valley up to Evanston just to get a few tickets

Aren't the odds of being involved in an automobile accident on the way to get your ticket better than the odds of winning the lottery?