The Church's financial situation

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Adam

You assume the Church of Jesus Christ should operate as a non-profit, spending only the interest earned on the endowment and seeking always to increase the endowment.

But maybe, just maybe, there is a different, more Christlike path for the Church of Jesus Christ to take. Maybe the best path would be to take care of the poor and needy starving today rather then piddle out a few million each year while building the endowment.

If you goal is to become self sufficient forever--even if donations dry up--then the Metropolitan Museum of Art is without question the way to go.

If you are the Church of Jesus Christ and you actually have faith that you will roll forth like a stone cut out of the mountain without hands until you fill the whole earth, well then maybe just maybe you don't have to worry about the donations drying up. Maybe you can go forth and do good with all you have today with faith that tithing and offerings will continue to be paid in the future.

Of course the Church Administrators/GAs agree with you. I don't dispute this. But I think the question is a good one to discuss.

And how much endowment is enough endowment? At how many billion do you have enough and start spending the principal? We'll never be able to have an intelligent discussion on point because the Church Administrators don't want us to know and discuss the numbers.

The issue is interesting, but spending the interest makes sense to me. Once you step outside the box on spending, you open the door for fiduciary mismanagement.

Financial caution makes the most sense.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by scottie

Is that $2B backing dollar for dollar or a percentage of the total insured amount? And what's the life insurance "standard"? I've always wondered about that.

There is an actuarial field known as "Asset-Liability Management". It helps to determine if your asset profile sufficiently matches your liabilities. In the most basic of terms, it's a way of determining that the PV of Liabilities is always less than the PV of Assets, given any number of deterministic and stochastic interest rate and other economic scenarios.

It's not a dollar for dollar match.

Additionally, there is what is known as Risk Based Capital, which is the additional amount of assets needed on hand to protect the company against adverse insurance, investment or interest rate experience.

http://www.beneficialgroup.com/about/financial.html

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Adam

Tell that to priesthood holder Larry Edward Carter, 48, who froze to death in Provo on New Years Day 2007 in the back of his soft-top jeep in the back corner of an apartment parking lot because the police impounded his tow trailer for parking on city streets. Utah County has no shelter because the

My point is that the fiscally prudent thing to do might not be the Christlike thing to do. In fact with charity, it rarely is.

So your contention is that his family, the church and its members refused his repeated requests for assistance and that's why he died?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Adam

My point is that the fiscally prudent thing to do might not be the Christlike thing to do. In fact with charity, it rarely is.

I just get warm fuzzies all over when Adam starts delineating what is Christlike and what isn't.

[Indy Coug]

Since Adam seems to be so tapped into the HQ Whispering Post, I'd be curious if he could elucidate how much of the church's investment portfolio in bonds, stocks, REITs, etc. back their legitimate business ventures and how much of it is actually specifically for the church itself?

If the church is receiving billions a year in tithing, what is the most reasonable way to deal with that steady flow of income while they allocate it to all of the various facets of the church (buildings, missionaries, storehouses, charities, etc.)?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Adam

Tell that to priesthood holder Larry Edward Carter, 48, who froze to death in Provo on New Years Day 2007 in the back of his soft-top jeep in the back corner of an apartment parking lot because the police impounded his tow trailer for parking on city streets. Utah County has no shelter. They can't raise money because the members say they all give all their discretionary funds to the Church. Govt won't fund it because private charity should do it and anyway it would just attract more bums who want to keep warm. And we don't want that.

My point is that the fiscally prudent thing to do might not be the Christlike thing to do. In fact with charity, it rarely is.

You use a heart-wrenching anecdote.

However, why didn't this member apply to his ward for assistance? Why didn't his hometeacher know of the predicament.

I don't think a government sponsored shelter is the answer to this probably isolated incident, horrible as it appears to have been.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Adam

My contention is that one of our brothers in the gospel froze to death in the heart of the highest Mormon concentration in the world (as did 12 others over the last two winters btw) while the Church to which he belongs builds a fiscally prudent endowment amount in the multiple billions.

I wonder if God cares less about how big our endowment is and cares more about how we are taking care of each other.

Bottom line: It is a discussion that I think we should be having in the Church. Right now, we aren't even thinking about it. Blind sheep blindly trusting whichever bureaucrat the Apostles have chosen to trust with this responsibility. That is one way to run an organization. And maybe it is God's way. But I have my doubts.

While this may be an issue to discuss, your example is almost certainly misleading. People die from exposure with some frequency in San Francisco and there are many available shelters and other organizations devoted to avoiding such deaths. It also seems ot me that nothign about the church's financial situation stops you or any other resident of the area (or any resident of any area) from attempting to make sure that people aren't freezing to death. I realize you're trying to make a larger point but I think you might have chosen a better example.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Adam

This is kind of the point. We don't have any data so we can't intelligently discuss it.

And the question isn't whether we should cover property taxes on the chapels.

The question is, with the surplus, after expenses should we buy more Coke stock or build a shelter in Utah County?

How much humanitarian aid is enough? I imagine somebody has allocated a percentage to it, but there will never be enough to provide all the aid the world requires.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Adam

My contention is that one of our brothers in the gospel froze to death in the heart of the highest Mormon concentration in the world (as did 12 others over the last two winters btw) while the Church to which he belongs builds a fiscally prudent endowment amount in the multiple billions.

I wonder if God cares less about how big our endowment is and cares more about how we are taking care of each other.

Bottom line: It is a discussion that I think we should be having in the Church. Right now, we aren't even thinking about it. Blind sheep blindly trusting whichever bureaucrat the Apostles have chosen to trust with this responsibility. That is one way to run an organization. And maybe it is God's way. But I have my doubts.

The assumption you're making here is that somehow the church could have saved these men simply by spending more money.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Adam

This is kind of the point. We don't have any data so we can't intelligently discuss it.

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

The assumption you're making here is that somehow the church could have saved these men simply by spending more money.

People with lots of money always have plenty of folks around them willing to instruct them on how to spend it.

Believe me, I know.