Bloomberg Business Week: How the Mormons Make Money

What is wrong with the Republican Party to have Mitt Romney as the nominee when he is/was a Bishop in the Mormon Church, donates millions to the Mormon Church and according to lifelong Mormons he is going to fulfill a prophecy of the Mormon Church by becoming President.

How does the Mormon Church afford to build this mega mall and still remain tax exempt?  Do they have their money buried in the Cayman's as well like Mitt Romney so not to pay tax?There is something about the Mormon Church and Romney being so attached that worries a lot of us if he became President.  When you read about the Mormon Church, you discover that Mormons first obligation is to the Mormon Church.  For such a small number of members how did they accumulate such wealth when they say none of the tithing goes to these projects.  They have spent double for the mall compared to what they have spent for charity purposes:

$1 billion to charitable causes in the 23 year time span between 1985 and 2008

The Mormon Church you learn has money invested around the world.  How did such a small Church in comparison to others get so much money?  We have not heard the end of this with more people starting to take notice and investigate just how a Church can build a mall overseen by the head of the Church and still remain tax exempt.  Talk about a pretzel, there should be a pretzel statue for how the leadership of the Church turns into pretzels while protecting their non-profit status.  Mitt Romney has opened up a can of worms with his candidacy.  Is he only running to fulfill the Mormon prophecy or something else?

Then we have this gem about how the Romney lies are not lies:

On June 13, psychoanalyst Dr. Justin Frank took to the Time Ideas blog to pen an article entitled, “The Root of Mitt Romney’s Comfort With Lying.” According to Frank, these supposed falsities can be blamed upon Mormonism. 

“But this pattern of lying and not acknowledging it, even when confronted directly, has persisted and led me to look for other sources of Romney’s behavior and of his clear comfort with continuing it,” Frank writes. “I think much of this comfort stems from his Mormon faith.” 

But it doesn’t end there, as he also points out Romney’s alleged lies and analyzes how Mormonism apparently allows for these infractions to take place. Frank goes on to claim that faith traditionally takes first seat with Mormons and that adherents allow it to, often times, trump fact. Here’s some more of his analysis:

I found myself discussing this situation with several colleagues, and we agreed that Romney doesn’t lie. Let me repeat: Mitt Romney doesn’t lie. He is telling the truth as he sees it — and truth it is, the facts notwithstanding. This is not simply a case of Hamlet arguing about point of view, saying, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This is about a conflict between evidence and faith. There is a long tradition in the Mormon belief system in which evidence takes second place to faith. Examples abound, as when two Mormon elders who were questioned about the inconsistency in passages from the Book of Mormon said, “We know the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the Word of God even in the face of evidence that appears contradictory,” according to The Mormon Missionaries by former Mormon Janice Hutchison. Thus there are no lies, only faith-based certainty that translates as truth for which no apology is needed, since what was said was not a lie.

If you are sufficiently confused that a lie to everyone else is not a lie to a Mormon, join the crowd.  Is this why he lies so much and he definitely does lie when you go back and check history of Mitt Romney.  In fact, he did this week when he said he didn't bring people to the NAACP Convention which was corrected by Lt Governor Carroll (R-FL) who was asked to attend with 200 other blacks at the request of Romney.  They also provided the standing ovation for Romney at the end of the speech not the members of the NAACP.  He also said he talked to black leaders at the NAACP but he only talked to his own supporters not leaders of the NAACP.  Might be easier to say when he tells the truth because he cannot even get the stories right about when he left Bain which is a company he owned 100% and was Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President in SEC filings until late 2002.  In a speech he said he was with Bain 25 years which would have him leaving in 2002 not 1999 he claims now.  More coverage on that in a separate article.  Don't want to confuse anyone too much.

My recommendation:  Don't buy a used car from a Mormon!

How the Mormons Make Money
By Caroline Winter on July 10, 2012 

Late last March the Mormon Church completed an ambitious project: a megamall. Built for roughly $2 billion, the City Creek Center stands directly across the street from the church’s iconic neo-Gothic temple in Salt Lake City. The mall includes a retractable glass roof, 5,000 underground parking spots, and nearly 100 stores and restaurants, ranging from Tiffany’s (TIF) to Forever 21. Walkways link the open-air emporium with the church’s perfectly manicured headquarters on Temple Square. Macy’s (M) is a stone’s throw from the offices of the church’s president, Thomas S. Monson, whom Mormons believe to be a living prophet. 

Mega Mall to the Right Built by the Mormon Church

On the morning of its grand opening, thousands of shoppers thronged downtown Salt Lake, eager to elbow their way into the stores. The national anthem played, and Henry B. Eyring, one of Monson’s top counselors, told the crowds, “Everything that we see around us is evidence of the long-standing commitment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City.” When it came time to cut the mall’s flouncy pink ribbon, Monson, flanked by Utah dignitaries, cheered, “One, two, three—let’s go shopping!” 

Watching a religious leader celebrate a mall may seem surreal, but City Creek reflects the spirit of enterprise that animates modern-day Mormonism. The mall is part of a sprawling church-owned corporate empire that the Mormon leadership says is helping spread its message, increasing economic self-reliance, and building the Kingdom of God on earth. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attends to the total needs of its members,” says Keith B. McMullin, who for 37 years served within the Mormon leadership and now heads a church-owned holding company, Deseret Management Corp. (DMC), an umbrella organization for many of the church’s for-profit businesses. “We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” 

McMullin explains that City Creek exists to combat urban blight, not to fill church coffers. “Will there be a return?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes, but so modest that you would never have made such an investment—the real return comes in folks moving back downtown and the revitalization of businesses.” Pausing briefly, he adds with deliberation, “It’s for furthering the aim of the church to make, if you will, bad men good, and good men better.” 

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples. 

The Mormon Church is hardly the only religious institution to be less than forthcoming about its wealth; the Catholic Church has been equally opaque throughout history. On the other hand, says historian D. Michael Quinn, who is working on a book about the LDS Church’s finances and businesses, “The Mormon Church is very different than any other church. … Traditional Christianity and Judaism make a clear distinction between what is spiritual and what is temporal, while Mormon theology specifically denies that there is such a distinction.” To Latter-day Saints, opening megamalls, operating a billion-dollar media and insurance conglomerate, and running a Polynesian theme park are all part of doing God’s work. Says Quinn: “In the Mormon [leadership’s] worldview, it’s as spiritual to give alms to the poor, as the old phrase goes in the Biblical sense, as it is to make a million dollars.” 

Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, but the church’s holdings are vast. First among its for-profit enterprises is DMC, which reaps estimated annual revenue of $1.2 billion from six subsidiaries, according to the business information and analysis firm Hoover’s Company Records (DNB). Those subsidiaries run a newspaper, 11 radio stations, a TV station, a publishing and distribution company, a digital media company, a hospitality business, and an insurance business with assets worth $3.3 billion. 

AgReserves, another for-profit Mormon umbrella company, together with other church-run agricultural affiliates, reportedly owns about 1 million acres in the continental U.S., on which the church has farms, hunting preserves, orchards, and ranches. These include the $1 billion, 290,000-acre Deseret Ranches in Florida, which, in addition to keeping 44,000 cows and 1,300 bulls, also has citrus, sod, and timber operations. Outside the U.S., AgReserves operates in Britain, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Its Australian property, valued at $61 million in 1997, has estimated annual sales of $276 million, according to Dun & Bradstreet. 

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