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SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
- DueDilligence 4y ago[flagged]
- anigbrowl 4y ago- $5 million in fines, for - 22 years of willful reporting violations - using 13 shell companies - to conceal ownership of a $32 billion portfolio I'm sure they're gutted by this ~0.016% fine.
- fnimick 4y agoFor context, 0.016% of 22 years is 1.25 days. They got fined effectively 1.25 days out of 22 years of profit.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoThey did not make $32 billion in profit over 22 years.
- marcosdumay 4y agoWell, they almost certainly made more. The only number we have is how much they reinvested, after depreciation.
- ramesh31 4y agoThe SEC is, largely, a powerless bogeyman due to chronic underfunding and lack of staff. Another wonderful feature of corporate regulatory capture in the US.
- nsxwolf 4y agoSo you need more staff to write down a larger fine on a piece of paper?
- freejazz 4y agoYou need the staff to enforce it...
- garyfirestorm 4y agofine = scale of crime x (number of ppl working at SEC/1000000)
- flandish 4y ago…yes? Because with larger fines comes larger court cases - and larger numbers of support staff. Corporations have lobbied and purchased their way into these freedoms at the cost of our wallets and futures. Don’t play thick. I too wish these assholes got prison time for this behavior.
- FredPret 4y agoHow many bureaucrats does it take to type a zero on a fine? In all seriousness, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist and I love the SEC.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CosmicShadow 4y agoBut what kind of staff or funding does it take to say literally different words out of your mouth like, you are fined $5B instead of $5MM? I can do that for free, especially if they are already at the point where they are making the charge. Every fine should be devastating so that they either barely survive or die, and every other company shits themselves for life and we solve the problem.
- yieldcrv 4y agoI feel worse for the whistleblower that probably reported that They thought they were going to get a much bigger payday by reporting the malfeasance of a 32 billion portfolio
- hef19898 4y agoYou can check on the SEC homepage if their is a corresponding whistleblower award. Could be as high as 1.5 million, which is not nothing but still less than one would have assumed.
- pseudosavant 4y agoI would guess that the whistleblower was employed by the church directly or via a subsidiary. Knowing many people who work for the Mormon church, it is likely the whistleblower lost their job and their pension. You will lose your job and pension if you stop regularly attending church services or giving 10% of your paycheck back to the church ('tithing'). I can't imagine they don't take a harder approach to this. To be clear, it is wrong to retaliate against whistleblowers, but large organizations get away with it a lot.
- lcall 4y agoI've been around the Church for a long time (and interacted a very little bit with senior leaders), and was a Church employee before health issues ended that. I very highly doubt that anyone "will lose your ... pension if you stop regularly attending church services or giving 10% of your paycheck back to the church". But job, yes. They want people who are devoted, if they are going to pay them to further the work. To me that makes perfect sense. (Thoughtful comments appreciated with downvotes; thanks.)
- mypalmike 4y agoThey "want people who are devoted" to helping skirt financial reporting laws?
- yieldcrv 4y ago
- tptacek 4y agoWhy would the fine be higher? Presumably it's proportionate to the harm caused, not by the size of the fund.
- shadowgovt 4y agoIt's actually a settlement, not a fine, which is probably pinned closer to the "This is the amount we think we'd have to pay lawyers to argue the case" value than the "This is how much we would owe if we were found guilty of breaking the law" value.
- tptacek 4y agoRight, either way, I'm looking for an intuition about how much an infraction like this should cost. Presumably, the settlement also includes the LDS church's consent to start filing reliable 13F's. I'm not saying I think 5MM is the right number; I'm just saying I have no intuition for what the number should be, and the rationale I see on the thread seems to be "they're big". If I get pulled over in a Bentley with an expired sticker, I pay the same price as someone in a Kia.
- tpush 4y ago> If I get pulled over in a Bentley with an expired sticker, I pay the same price as someone in a Kia. In the US, sure. The people advocating for a proportional fine in the LDS case presumably would argue for a proportional one in your example, too.
- nekasrbenda 4y agoNot in Sweden tho, traffic tickets are proportional to income.
- tptacek 4y agoIf you keep getting tickets in the US, you'll eventually get your license suspended.
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- bcatanzaro 4y ago$5M penalty seems very small.
- emodendroket 4y agoI would guess there’s some reticence to be seen coming down hard on a church, not that it is going to help to levy only a small fine.
- jmclnx 4y agoYes, and I think this Church has an oversized influence on US Politicians. But I agree, the fine should be large enough to send a clear message to other orgs like them.
- emodendroket 4y agoRight, but I meant it’s likely to be portrayed as an out-of-control regulatory apparatus going after religious conservatives even though they used the kid gloves.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThe fundies only care about their sect. As far as they're concerned LDS is a bunch of apostates.
- emodendroket 4y agoHeretics more like but I think you underestimate the capacity for cynical alliances of convenience.
- invalidOrTaken 4y agoIt's a settlement, not a fine; the SEC took what they could get, which was apparently...not much.
- Natsu 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- willk 4y agoI think we really should be looking at the tax-exempt status of religious organizations have that subsidiaries that are doing their taxes and setting up shell companies to hide where money is coming/going.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 4y agoBetter to just get rid of the tax exempt status for religious organizations altogether. They can operate like any other non-profit and be subject to that set of rules, or they can be a regular corporation and be subject to a different set of rules. The religious exemption is a big regulatory gap that doesn't need to exist.
- Natsu 4y agoThat exists so that the government can't just decide to tax one religion out of existence while favoring others.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoI can think of other ways to keep the government from taking sides in religions
- usrusr 4y agoAs if governments were in the habit of arbitrarily handing out large scale tax exemptions. That idea might have been well-intended, but it's really a solution in search of a problem. And how would a religion be "taxed out of existence" anyways? Or the religion the belief or is the religion the org?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoSeems preemptive. There is already freedom of religion. If one is singled out and taxed unfairly then they can sue (and probably win).
- xboxnolifes 4y agoSounds like the opposite. To qualify for religious tax exemption you need to actually prove to be, and practice as, a "real" religion. If there is no tax exception, it's more fair.
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]
- henning 4y agoRevoke the tax-exempt status of religious organizations that engage in political speech.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoremove "that engage in political speech" even!
- skyyler 4y agoYeah, it's weird to me that some churches are essentially companies that aren't taxed.
- rileymat2 4y agoThere are rules against election specific speech, but more broadly shouldn’t charities be able to engage in political speech with respect to policy efforts? I would think it strange that a charity could not promote its mission in the political arena.
- boeingUH60 4y agoHere's a related random fact: Fidelity, the well-known investment firm, runs donor-advised charitable funds for rich clients that in aggregate constitute America's charity [1]. The three largest recipients from those funds? Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Mormon Church...organizations that aren't in any way hurting for money. I guess people fund what they are familiar with and for prestige. 1- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/how-fidelity-investments-built-america-s-biggest-charity https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/how-fidel...
- mulmen 4y agoI’m confused. Does this mean my retirement savings somehow benefits or is related to the LDS?
- boeingUH60 4y agoNo, these are Fidelity clients that specifically direct sums from their investment accounts to be donated to charity. The donations come from clients that choose to, not Fidelity itself.
- loeg 4y agoGP is talking about Fidelity Charitable, a somewhat distinct organization from Fidelity (which administers your 401(k)). https://www.fidelity.com/building-savings/charitable-giving#:~:text=Fidelity%20Charitable%20is%20the%20brand,provide%20services%20to%20Fidelity%20Charitable https://www.fidelity.com/building-savings/charitable-giving#....
- irrational 4y agoOnly if you choose to do so, otherwise, no.
- loeg 4y agoThe organization running the DAFs is Fidelity Charitable, which is not quite the same organization as the well-known investment firm. They are related, but distinct.
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- telaelit 4y agoThere should no longer be tax-exempt status for religious organizations that have committed so many violations for so many years. In fact I think there should be stipulations if you want to be tax exempt, like you have to have all of your finances be public so the people who give to your organization know exactly where the money is going.
- yieldcrv 4y agoI like how you just reinvented the current regulatory regime
- tombert 4y agoNearly every Baptist church/preacher I have seen explicitly endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, and calls Joe Biden an election thief (or one of a dozen other conspiracies). My understanding is that this is in direct violation of their tax-free status [1]. Maybe we should actually start enforcing this. [1] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics EDIT: I couldn't remember the name of the thing that states this, but here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment
- bigtex 4y agoI assume this also applies to the churches who had Raphel Warnock on stage and told the congregants to vote for him. FYI, he is a democrat.
- mrguyorama 4y agoI would be giddy if everyone who did something bad regardless of political affiliation would get justice.
- tombert 4y agoI think it's bad when any church specifically endorses or opposes any candidate, Democrat, Republican, Communist, or anything in between. This is also what the law says if they want to keep their tax-free filing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment It would be impossible to draw the line at "politics", because of course basically everything can be considered "political". If they want to endorse a specific candidate, that's fine, but then they should pay taxes like the rest of us.
- OrvalWintermute 4y agoI live in a deep blue area much of the local churches, synagogues, and mosques, support Joe Biden. I've got no problem with that, or the reverse - some of these views just reflect their interpretation of their holy faith through their own perception. I'd rather we not go after religious organizations unless they are actually doing something criminal, sex crimes, financial crimes, etc.
- mike_d 4y agoAt this point regulatory fines are just a cost of doing business, same as the break room coffee maker or printer paper. Fines need to be 150% of the maximum benefit of the infringement.
- lcall 4y agoThe Church's statement: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-issues-statement-on-sec-settlement https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-issu...
- burkaman 4y ago> Q: Did Ensign Peak fail to comply with SEC regulations? > A: We reached resolution with the SEC. We affirm our commitment to comply with the law, regret mistakes made, and now consider this matter closed. Why would they ask themselves a question that they refuse to answer? Did they have to negotiate these FAQs with the SEC too?
- lcall 4y agoThe answer says they "regret mistakes made". (Thoughtful comments appreciated with downvotes; thanks.)
- dfxm12 4y ago(Thoughtful comments appreciated with downvotes; thanks.) OK, I'll bite. The response doesn't answer the question. What "mistakes" are being referenced? Who made them? This is a yes/no question. Don't get fooled by grammar tricks, like the ambiguous voice of made or the ambiguous reference to mistakes.
- 4y ago
- joshstrange 4y agoMy friends and I that meet weekly (on Sunday) for a potluck that has been going on for over a decade were joking about starting our own religion (turns out we meet a number of the IRS requirements already and the remaining things would be easy to create). Clearly the enforcement of corruption (which we would have no intention of doing) is next to zero and having a real "religion" is a joke so maybe we should go ahead and do it...
- mistrial9 4y agoanti-Church pitchforks come out pretty fast here? it shows that some people simply want to eliminate Church itself, and use bad news to propel that point of view. why not address the actions themselves, specifically; plenty of crooks in the investment game, some of them use Church money it seems.
- ok_dad 4y agoI personally wouldn't mind eliminating every religious organization, since religion is not any specific organization, but rather a personal belief system and a way to live your own life. Large groups of people (the execs that run the orgs) deriving income and wealth from that personal experience is demented. Christians and others shouldn't be afraid of their religion being destroyed, just the corrupt organizations that prey on their personal beliefs in order to further their own agendas.
- aliasxneo 4y agoI agree, but I also think Christians have precedence to be afraid of government persecution. So, it's a fine line that our forefathers tried to draw.
- ok_dad 4y agoChristian and many other individuals have been persecuted in the past, but it isn't persecuting an organization by punishing them for breaking the law or acting in contravention to it unless that law is specifically targeted towards them. In this case, it seems there was a "slap on the wrist" punishment, but no true accountability for their actions. It is pointless to even argue for the straw-man that "Christians in America need to fear persecution" since that is not the case, even the tiniest bit, in today's America.
- dbrueck 4y agoI'm not the OP, but the slap on the wrist punishment seems appropriate for the violation. See VLM's comment about the form in question, for example, but the summary of events is basically: SEC: Hey, the way you're filing those forms looks sneaky, don't do that. church: k
- invalidOrTaken 4y agoWow, sounds like they must be pretty guilty if the SEC managed to get them to settle for a whole five million dollars!
- shartshooter 4y agoOne question I had while reading this: - Should non-profits be allowed to "invest" their tax-exempt donations? It seems that non-profits should obtain their funding through grants or donations. Investing, on the other hand, seems like the opposite of "non-profit" As a personal aside, I've recently been introduced to a few folks who seem to be doing extraordinarily well financially. It turns out that they all run "non-profits." And not just any non-profit, but firms that were started by their parents. Question for everyone: I'm not nearly as aggressive about finding tax deductions as I could be. Am I just a suck here?
- yellow_lead 4y agoA church where I grew up has a large endowment from a previous family in the area. If they didn't invest their money, the endowment wouldn't last. Just an example. Not to say I'm in favor of church's non profit status or this particular point, but inflation could hurt for them if investing weren't allowed
- dbrueck 4y agoTwo things to consider: it seems reasonable for any organization - including a non-profit - to save some for a rainy day, and anything that doesn't get used immediately and doesn't get invested loses value just by sitting there (due to inflation). IMO neither of those is enough to warrant a blanket "sure, why not?" answer to your first question and for there not to be any restrictions at all, but off the cuff it doesn't seem terrible. As to your 2nd question: assuming you live in the U.S., it follows the laws of diminishing returns. It might be worth it to sit down with a non-sleazy tax adviser one time (and again each time you have a major life event) to make sure you're not missing anything big and/or easy, but pursuing every possible honest deduction is exhausting and time-consuming and so you eventually reach a point where chasing that next deduction is not worth your time.
- vineyardmike 4y agoNot to take a side, because you're right that there are a lot of ways people exploit this, but there are reasons why a charity may legitimately want to invest. > Investing, on the other hand, seems like the opposite of "non-profit" There's two ways to look at this. You can consider investing in the capitalist sense where you're trying to make money and profit, and maybe the managers exploit the system, but you can consider it in a different perspective: wealth preservation and time-deferral of resources to reduce economic dependency of donations. For example, universities often have large endowments. Universities take in small streams of money which may fluctuate with the economy and occasional massive donations, and then once a decade build a very expensive building. They probably want to protect the monies in that constant stream from inflation and economic cycles until they need to build a new building. Beyond time-deferral of resources, sometimes universities (or alum) establish a fund that should pay out continuously for eg. scholarships. By donating $1M, you can provide a 50k payout (5%) to a student, forever, and see modest growth of the fund above that (eg. ~2%) to cover inflation. This ensures that a one-time act of charity can last more than a few years. > I've recently been introduced to a few folks who seem to be doing extraordinarily well financially. It turns out that they all run "non-profits. Yea, maybe we need to consider the exploitation of non-profit exemptions and how it can be "self serving". But consider an alternative story: rich parents give their kids a lot of money, so they don't need to work to pay bills. This frees them to work low-pay charitable jobs because they have a separate trust fund to cover cost of living.
- tarotuser 4y agoA "religion" primarily assumes standard Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc: all of which have buildings, assets, collections, and such. For those of us who either have a solitary practice or meet with a small group (coven), none of our costs for our practices are tax exempt. If we are large enough, we usually cannot be "acknowledged by the state" to get tax exempt status. When we do get enough people in our group, it's an uphill slog to even get acknowledged as 'real', although there are few and far between covens which have won what the Christians get already. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2011/03/witches-and-tax-exemption.html https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2011/03/witches-... https://nonprofitquarterly.org/pagans-weigh-in-on-the-laws-of-religious-nonprofits/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/pagans-weigh-in-on-the-laws-o... https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Court-considers-neo-Pagan-s-tax-exemption-case-5838168.php https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Court-considers-neo... Basically, the Christians get away with using tax exempt status, and then populate things like "megachurches" (aka: church-based tax fraud). Those of us with less common beliefs are given the short shrift, and default treat our beliefs as "not worthy of federal and state tax exemption". When the IRS and state tax entities start playing games of discerning which belief is real and not, is a grave concern for 1FA. The state should never be in the business of saying whose beliefs are real or not.
- mrguyorama 4y agoProviding tax exempt status to only churches you have "proven" to be churches should be seen as legislating religion. The only ACTUAL fair way to handle it is allow any organization to vie for charity style tax exempt status, with a high bar of charity required to succeed, and churches are otherwise no more an organization than your company's softball team. Alternatively, nobody gets ANY tax exempt status, and we should stop using tax deductions as subsidies, because they are only really available to those with ample money to play with and can afford more experienced tax professionals
- gowld 4y agoYour links explain how in the USA any belief does get non-profit status.
- say_it_as_it_is 4y ago> According to the order, the Church was concerned that disclosure of its portfolio, which by 2018 grew to approximately $32 billion, would lead to negative consequences. If you don't report your trades or positions, you can insider trade all day to your hearts desire, or in this case by the hand of God Almighty
- fooey 4y agoMakes it more difficult to get their members to keep paying a mandatory 10% of their income, to be considered a member in good standing, when you're already sitting on a dragon's horde
- outworlder 4y agoThere's a section in Bloomberg's Matt Levine column about this. That's useful to understand what they were doing with the shell companies. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-21/amc-apes-hate-amc-s-apes https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-21/amc-ap...
- wrycoder 4y agoPaywall, not resolved by archive.org
- mikeyouse 4y ago> The rule in the US is roughly that if you are an institution — a pension fund, an endowment, an investment firm, a bank, etc. — and you own more than $100 million worth of stocks, you have to disclose your stock holdings every quarter. You file Form 13F with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and it is publicly available and everyone can see what stocks you own. > If you don’t like this, there are reasonably standard solutions. The rule is actually that you have to file Form 13F if you “exercise investment discretion” over your stocks — meaning basically that you decide what stocks to buy and sell — so the trick is not to do that. If you have $1 billion to invest in the stock market, you go to a big institutional investment manager and say “hi, here’s $1 billion, please buy some stocks for me.” You agree on some investment criteria — the mandate for your investment — and you pay the manager some fees, and the manager buys the stocks for you. This saves you all sorts of aggravation — picking the stocks, doing the trading, setting up custody arrangements, etc. — but it also probably saves you from filing a Form 13F, if that’s your goal. Instead, the investment management firm files a Form 13F showing all of the stocks that it owns — that it “exercises investment discretion” over — for its various clients, including you. You are just an anonymous client; your data is aggregated with the rest of the clients. > Presumably if you’re a big enough account, and interested enough in the markets, you might end up doing some kibbitzing about what your investment manager is buying. The manager’s mandate for your account might be narrow and customized for your interests; if you are, for instance, a fund that invests money for a religious group, you might tell the manager to avoid certain sorts of sin stocks. You might chat periodically with the manager about what they’re up to, and you might give them some input, without quite “exercising investment discretion” over the account. The manager makes the investing decisions, but with your preferences in mind. > You could push this further. Hire an “investment manager” to buy and sell stocks for you, but just tell them exactly what to buy and sell. They’re not really in the business of making the investment decisions; they’re just in the business of sitting between you and the public Form 13F requirement. This way you get exactly the stocks you want, and presumably a fake investment manager is cheaper than a real one. > This is illegal, though you can see how you might feel justified in doing it. “Why should random strangers get to know what stocks I own,” you might think. That seems to have been what the Mormon Church thought. [..] > “The Church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of Ensign Peak, a known Church affiliate, would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the Church’s portfolio,” says the complaint, and you can see their point. The effect of the 13F rules here is mostly to make public that the church has a lot of money. But the rules are the rules, and setting up 13 shell LLCs to pretend to manage your money for you doesn’t really work to get around them.
- dqpb 4y ago[flagged]
- japhib 4y agoThis is not a logical conclusion. It's like saying, if Jeff Bezos is really so rich, why are Amazon warehouse employees not paid better? He must actually be poor and can only afford to pay people low salaries.
- dqpb 4y agoEmployees are forced to accept a bad deal due to asymmetrical market dynamics. Without the job they would be worse off until they find a replacement. The person with the money (Bezos) has all the power. Not so with church members. If they stopped attending they would have more money. They are the ones with the power. So why would a grown adult willfully hand over their money to an organization that already has all the money it could possibly need? A better counterpoint would be - Why do people keep paying $60 worth of streaming video subscriptions per month when the content delivered is increasingly just lame irrelevant re-hashed bullshit?
- ok_dad 4y ago> Not so with church members. If they stopped attending they would have more money. They are the ones with the power. So why would a grown adult willfully hand over their money to an organization that already has all the money it could possibly need? When people leave a church, it often comes with a cost, and that cost is too great to bear for many people who rely on family and friends and other social relationships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-Mormon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-Mormon
- japhib 4y ago> Employees are forced to accept a bad deal due to asymmetrical market dynamics > Not so with church members. If they stopped attending they would have more money. They are the ones with the power. Absolutely not. Faithful members of a church believe that if they were to leave the church, they would literally be damned to hell for eternity. Churches have _enormous_ power over their members, often far more than employers.
- charonn0 4y agoI find it interesting that they can "agree" to "pay a penalty" to make criminal charges go away.
- gigatexal 4y agoFor context every 6 months there’s a report on the first day of what’s called the General Conference where church leaders address the wider Church and the in house auditor says that all things are fine and proper with respect to accepted accounting principles. :shrug:
- mattcantstop 4y agoA Mormon leader, L. Tom Perry said this years ago (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2000/10/discipleship?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference...) in a religious address: "My mother was a great delegator. Each Saturday morning as my brothers and sisters and I were growing up, we received housecleaning assignments from her. Her instructions to us had been learned from her mother: “Be certain you clean thoroughly in the corners and along the mopboards. If you are going to miss anything, let it be in the center of the room.” She knew very well if we cleaned the corners, she would never have a problem with what was left in the center of the room. That which is visible to the eye would never be left unclean. Over the years, my mother’s counsel has had enormous application to me in many different ways. It is especially applicable to the task of spiritual housecleaning. The aspects of our lives that are on public display usually take care of themselves because we want to leave the best impression possible. But it is in the hidden corners of our lives where there are things that only we know about that we must be particularly thorough to ensure that we are clean." --- It seems like they took the exact opposite approach. Secret, backroom dealing to hide how much money the faith had to avoid scrutiny over what they are doing with this money. It is to avoid accountability to their own members and the world at large. And it's not surprising that they do this, when they demonstrate almost no accountability to their members when it comes to transparency because members have been lulled into a "god is at the helm, don't worry about it" mentality. The tax exempt status of religious organizations is an enormous investment that the United States created. I could see at some point that being a worthwhile investment. There are many organizations that do a lot of good. But is that the current dynamic? Is that investment of the USA getting a good return if you consider how many religious organizations hoard the wealth they accumulate, enrich their leaders, and the community they operate in gets very little in return. I helped a member of the LDS faith with some bills last year. These people have paid 10% of their income to their faith for years. I asked them why they asked me for help and not their faith. They said their local leader said they were unwilling to help them with certain bills. So society is subsidizing the LDS faith with tax benefits in the hope that they do tremendous good, but instead we get hidden finances to avoid scrutiny, and members (not always, but often) not being able to rely on them as a safety net in tough times. There are, of course, times they can rely on them. But overall, does the tax exempt status of religions make sense? Are we getting the return on investment that we hope from this decision to not tax them? I do not believe we are.
- rblatz 4y agoAny idea what specific investments the church was trying to distance themselves from?
- lcall 4y agoOne article I saw quoted somebody, saying they thought they wanted to prevent members from mimicking the Church's investments, as it would not necessarily fit their personal situations. That is just one idea.
- beambot 4y agoCurious. At $32B, the LDS church controls more than virtually all US university endowments -- with the only exception being Harvard. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=73 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=73
- lcall 4y agoThe Church runs many institutions of higher ed, including one that is open globally over the internet with vastly cheaper tuition depending on the student's country's economy (also accredited), as well as extensive humanitarian aid and other ongoing construction projects, building maintenance, publishing, etc that continually consume $. They want to be able to sustain those operations by saving for "a rainy day", which they also counsel others to do. (Thoughtful comments appreciated with downvotes; thanks.)
- japhib 4y ago$32B in 2018 -- much higher by now ...
- mikeyouse 4y agoEnsign had well over $100 billion by 2020; https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/mormon-church-has-misled-members-on-100-billion-tax-exempt-investment-fund-whistleblower-alleges/2019/12/16/e3619bd2-2004-11ea-86f3-3b5019d451db_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/mormon-church-...
- woolcap 4y agoSome info about how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses its donations: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/humanitarian-aid-welfare-services-breakdown-donations-costs-resources https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/humanitaria... I suspect most of its investments are targeted towards the same ends.
- fooey 4y agoThe fund in question has never in 22 years been tapped for any charitable purpose
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lcall 4y agoDue to the extent of Church operations and the ongoing costs, they feel it is wise to save for a rainy day (as they also advise others). More details in my comment elsewhere on this page.
- woolcap 4y agoHaving lived through the dot-com bust, my wife and I around the same time (20+ years ago), began to set some funds aside for the "rainy day" of not if, but _when_ I might lose my job in tech, given the often volatile nature of the industry. We've been fortunate not to have to need to dip into those funds for that purpose over that time, but I think it's a wise practice, one that the church teaches, and follows.
- mikeyouse 4y agoThe part about welfare for those not of their faith was just in the news due to the way we do block grants to states to fund welfare services.. the state of Utah largely hands off their program work to the LDS Church which is pretty unfortunate when they make support contingent on joining their church, going so far to tell people they won't be provided with support that's Federally required unless they get baptized into the church. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/12/02/utah-makes-welfare-so/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/12/02/utah-makes-welfare-so...
- VLM 4y agoI'm sure discussion will rapidly turn into only the most correct opinions about religion or capitalism in general. However, specifically, a form 13-F is a mandatory report for (mostly) mutual funds and similar institutional investors to report in public whatever strategy they're using for investment by dumping a quarterly balance sheet (gross simplification please don't shoot the mostly accurate messenger). Only mutual funds are not permitted privacy when investing, because I donno. You and I do not have to publish our stock ownership (unless you or I are mutual funds) There's a lot of static about the 13F because the reporting interval is too long for short term investment and too short for long term investment so as a regulatory tool it's quite useless and eliminating the entire thing wouldn't really change anything in the market for anyone. Its one of those bureaucracy tax things that we can't get rid of because it makes the middlemen money and provides a barrier to entry for smaller operators while not actually providing any useful service to anyone other than some jobs. Hilariously I can't recall any 13F related stock scams over the past couple decades. Every ponzi or fraud in the last couple decades has been accompanied by completely useless 13F filings. My understanding is this form of busywork is very handy to publicize aggressive regulatory activity while not actually regulating anything. Great job SEC, at making sure Madoff and FTX filed their completely useless 13F forms. Thank God the SEC was busy enforcing 13F filings while ignoring what was going on at FTX. Part of the justification for the fines being miniscule is there's not really much point to the entire process. Not filing a 13F is right up there with smoking weed WRT being a victimless crime. I don't understand the point of the 13 shell companies because if they were actually trying to conceal information they'd have created somewhat over 330 shell companies to stay under the $100M reporting limit as I understand the entire portfolio is worth $32B. So clearly they're not "up to no good" or if they are, they're unimaginably incompetent. The press is doing the usual propaganda spin on the shell companies which is pretty funny to the people of some financial sophistication (which is probably approx none of the general public). My guess is the "shell" companies are some kind of legit strategy that failed. If you reorg to try to get outside investment using tighter categories, but your sales team is crap, resulting in minimal new investments, technically that reorg can make you a financial criminal under some weird circumstances. Thanks SEC, doin a great job keeping us safe!
- dbrueck 4y ago
- not_your_mentat 4y agoWatching the Tabernacle choir sing at Trump's inauguration was the act that broke my faith in the church. Since then, I've come to see the church as just another corporation. Too bad the corporation isn't governed by their own scripture, what with the "render unto Caesar that which is Cesar's" thing and whatnot. From the articles of faith (canonized LDS scripture): 12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. 13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. Everyone is playing the game of power. Some people are really good at it.
- not_your_mentat 4y agoAnd the years after years of being told in General Conference that the church is being run according to best accounting practices and that everything is healthy and above board.
- dbrueck 4y agoAnother perspective: https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/about/choir/history/history-of-inaugural-appearances.html https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/about/choir/history/histo...
- not_your_mentat 4y agoSo, they sing for morally bankrupt presidents who are looking for religious legitimacy.
- dbrueck 4y ago"The Choir’s participation in these events is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics, but rather a demonstration of its support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power."
- pacetherace 4y ago$5M is probably less than what it cost SEC to investigate the church.
- bastard_op 4y agoIf you must profiteer and extract all the funds from blissful ignorance, why not a church.
- TbobbyZ 4y agoDevout member of this church my entire life. 2 years ago during covid I finally read most of the history of Joseph Smith. Found out it’s a fraud and left. For having Jesus Christ in its name, I have a hard time believing Jesus is running the board of this corporation and is suggesting billions be spent in investments instead of billions feeding, clothing, housing, and providing healthcare for those in need. And don’t tell me about their humanitarian efforts. A fraction of their wealth is used on such endeavors. End of the day, all their leadership cares about is wanting the whole world to volunteer their free time to the local congregation, pay tithing, and do temple ceremonies. Next time you meet a Mormon, ask them to clearly draw a line to what they do in the temple regularly and why that’s what Jesus wants them to do. You’ll see them hit the cognitive dissonance wall.
- ravagat 4y ago"Get caught with that, that's just a slap on the wrist"