What you guys don't know is that this new mall is convertible within 48 hours into a Super Temple complex.

You think it's just a mall . . .

Pres Hinckley: "Father, we submit these plans for your approval. Please let us know thy will."

<sufficient period of silence>

Pres Hinckley: I'm pretty sure that was an "OK". Let's do it.

I avoid going to downtown SLC pretty much all the time, except for a Jazz game here and there. I don't care what happens.

My initial reaction was, why wouldn't the church use that money for humanitarian means, or to build temples, or to help the poor receive education, etc?

But... they already do those things, and in a very large way. For example the church was the largest private donor to Hurricane Katrina aid.

Obviously they (we?) have the assets for this without dipping into other budgets, so let the locals eat sushi. Sounds reasonable to me because they want to own the area surrounding Temple Square, but at the same time they still want it to be used. If they put in a five-story Beehive Clothing, who would go there? And if they put in low-income housing or the LDS Business College kids, they would just trash the place.

I heard today that before Zaire's 17,000 percent inflation set in, and its economy shrunk by 50%, Robert Mugabe said, in response to those who questioned his printing money to buy off his henchmen, "Countries can't go bankrupt, silly!" That's similar to the refrain you hear from most LDS in respone to concerns about the wisdom of this investment: "Come on, silly, they had that $2 billion sitting around in coin jars in the Church Office Building."

Truth is, the Church's perceived spectacular success investing is part of the LDS lore. The books are closed. If it was such a spectacular deal why didn't anybody else want to do it?

Do we know that nobody else wanted to do it?

That's funny because it's usually the LDS church that denies much success in that area. It's the outside sources who have claimed the tremendous success. So, I guess this is one area where you side with the church's version of things.

Most emphatically yes. It was an LDS Church bail out for downtown Salt Lake which was fast becoming a ghost town.

Mugabe is in Zimbabwe.

If the Church can't afford it who can? They have a big fat income stream coming in.

It certainly does seem that the LDS Church is the only entity willing to do this. Then again, perhaps nobody else was asked if they wanted to do it.

Of course, if downtown SLC became a ghost town, folks would complain that the LDS Church didn't do enough to bail it out.