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Mormon Church has $100 BILLION

Watchmen

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
At what point do you actually start using some of that money for good rather than waiting for the so-called end times?

On a separate note, appears they have sound financial strategies (such as staying out of debt). Although $7B in tithing per year helps.
 

SoyLeche

meh...
I’ve spent most of my career in the insurance industry, so the concept of reserves makes a lot of sense to me. Is 100B “excessive”? I’m not sure. It would be nice to have more transparent finances to be able to get a feel for that.

one number I’ve seen is 1B per year in charitable work. I don’t know where exactly the number comes from or how accurate it is.

the church does self insure all of its properties, so that may be another couple billion. Then there is general operations which is probably another billion or so.

100B seems like a lot. It may well even be “too much”. It’s tough to say. If another 2008 financial crisis happened and half of it disappeared into the ether, and a catastrophe or two happened that required the charitable giving to be significantly multiplied, it might be good that the cushion exists.

I’m curious where you got your 7B in tithing number. I haven’t been able to find a reliable number for that.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
I’ve spent most of my career in the insurance industry, so the concept of reserves makes a lot of sense to me. Is 100B “excessive”? I’m not sure. It would be nice to have more transparent finances to be able to get a feel for that.

one number I’ve seen is 1B per year in charitable work. I don’t know where exactly the number comes from or how accurate it is.

the church does self insure all of its properties, so that may be another couple billion. Then there is general operations which is probably another billion or so.

100B seems like a lot. It may well even be “too much”. It’s tough to say. If another 2008 financial crisis happened and half of it disappeared into the ether, and a catastrophe or two happened that required the charitable giving to be significantly multiplied, it might be good that the cushion exists.

I’m curious where you got your 7B in tithing number. I haven’t been able to find a reliable number for that.
They allegedly keep it around because the belief it be needed when Jesus returns. Because, ya know, a god needs money. :confused:
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
At what point do you actually start using some of that money for good rather than waiting for the so-called end times?

On a separate note, appears they have sound financial strategies (such as staying out of debt). Although $7B in tithing per year helps.
That piddly insignificant sum?

You should see where the real money is at....

MormonLeaks: LDS Church connected to at least $32B in U.S. stock market

Of course everyone knows churches shouldn't pay taxes........Oh Yea.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
At what point do you actually start using some of that money for good rather than waiting for the so-called end times?

On a separate note, appears they have sound financial strategies (such as staying out of debt). Although $7B in tithing per year helps.
I'm not necessarily opposed to a church having a lot of money. Many organizations have endowments: big pools of money that help to fund the main organization with the returns from investments. Harvard's endowment is famous for this (though it's still "only" $40 billion, so a fraction of the size of the LDS's pool of funds).

The issues that raise my eyebrow here:

- the LDS Church didn't set this upnas an endowment; it seems to be just investments owned and overseen by the Church directly.

- it seems like they tried to keep the size of their portfolio secret.

If they had been transparent about this (e.g. by promoting all the good they did with the returns from their portfolio), it probably wouldn't have been an issue.

They could have even used it to encourage donations: "thanks to our careful, responsible investing, if you donate $100 today, we'll be able to buy 100 more meals for needy kids every year forever!"
 

Watchmen

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
To add some context, the Mormon Church’s $100B is more than double the Harvard Endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And here’s a shocker: it’s double that Catholic Church’s $50B in assets.

At what point does the Church stop asking for tithing from its poor members?

Would you feel angry if you were required to pay tithing to a $100B organization?
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
Organized religion seems to be little more than a money making scheme.

Jailbird Jim Bakker is even selling phony cures for corona virus to his mouth-breathing audience.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
To add some context, the Mormon Church’s $100B is more than double the Harvard Endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And here’s a shocker: it’s double that Catholic Church’s $50B in assets.
Where are you getting that number from for the Catholic Church?

It's similar to other reports I've seen for Vatican City, but every Catholic diocese (roughly equivalent to a stake in LDS terms) is incorporated as a separate legal entity, so it wouldn't include the vast majority of the assets that the Church controls through its bishops.

At what point does the Church stop asking for tithing from its poor members?
Never, AFAICT, since the requirement for tithes is based on a religious commandment, not need for cash per se.

Would you feel angry if you were required to pay tithing to a $100B organization?
Of all the things that I would be mad at if I were a member of the LDS Church, this is way, WAY down the list.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
At what point do you actually start using some of that money for good rather than waiting for the so-called end times?

On a separate note, appears they have sound financial strategies (such as staying out of debt). Although $7B in tithing per year helps.

That's good. Except it's just replacable fiat money -not something that takes away from anyone else, since more money can just be printed off and redistributed in it's place.

They should trade it off for an actual commodity, to ensure it's value.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
That's good. Except it's just replacable fiat money -not something that takes away from anyone else, since more money can just be printed off and redistributed in it's place.

They should trade it off for an actual commodity, to ensure it's value.
It's mostly a huge real estate portfolio, AFAIK.
 

SoyLeche

meh...
Organized religion seems to be little more than a money making scheme.

Jailbird Jim Bakker is even selling phony cures for corona virus to his mouth-breathing audience.
I don’t disagree with you in many cases, but I’m not finding any individuals getting rich off of the Mormon church. I may be missing some though.
 

Quetzal

A little to the left and slightly out of focus.
Premium Member
They allegedly keep it around because the belief it be needed when Jesus returns. Because, ya know, a god needs money. :confused:
"Yo yo, what up homies. Entrance is $10g, but if you want that first row, VIP experience, its $35 large." -Jesus 2043
 

SoyLeche

meh...
To add some context, the Mormon Church’s $100B is more than double the Harvard Endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And here’s a shocker: it’s double that Catholic Church’s $50B in assets.

At what point does the Church stop asking for tithing from its poor members?

Would you feel angry if you were required to pay tithing to a $100B organization?
Looking just at the Harvard comparison:

their endowment is about 40B and they have roughly 20,000 students.

lds church owned universities have about 90,000 students. If they had an equivalent endowment to Harvard that would be about 180B.

in reality - Harvard uses about 5% of the endowment annually - so about 2B. According to the article I linked to, the church spends about 0.75B to fund its universities. At 5% that would equate to about a 15B endowment.

not sure why Harvard needs so much more per student.

the gates foundation comparison is interesting. By all appearances, that foundation is very efficient and should be commended.
 
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