http://www.businessweek.com/articles/...
"So long as this church has any resources, those resources will be made available to those in need, anywhere in the world."
G.B. Hinckley. Speech given in Honduras, November 1998, following Hurricane Mitch.
I guess downtown Salt Lake City "needed" "those resources" so bad that the equivalent of more than thirty years' worth of Mormon charity funding was "made available" to build the Mall of Mormon God (a.k.a. The Mall of Mammon).
I loved some of the Money-Shot quotes so much I decided to cull them for you from the article, and supplied Plain English translations below:
Money Quote: "'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attends to the total needs of its members,' says Keith B. McMullin, [...] 'We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.'"
Plain English: "The goal of every good Mormon should be the accumulation of Money so that they can further the agenda of the church. We believe that a poor person can not be spiritual simply by reason of the fact that they have no money and so it is plain they are not an obedient member."
Money Quote: "'[...] 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.'"
Plain English: "What is good for business is good for the church. The aim of the church is to make poor businessmen rich, and rich businessmen richer."
Money Quote: "'[...] all of the trading happens essentially with a handshake. [...] There's lots of protections around it, but billions of dollars change hands every day just based on the ethics of the group-that people know that they can trust each other.'"
Plain English: "We like to operate according to the same principles as the Cosa Nostra: what the government can't find out, we don't have to pay taxes on. Those paper trails are a nuisance, and if we did have documentation and were ever to be audited, we'd be screwed! It is so much more profitable to just do everything quietly and under the table, with a handshake - the Second Token of the Melchezidek Priesthood, The Patriarchal Grip, or Sure Sign of the Nail handshake, in fact! We know we can trust each other because we have the Danites to protect our secrets and we don't mind threatening people's eternal salvation or their families to enforce compliance and good behavior."
Money Quote: "'They give direction to the overall or umbrella company, but they do not give direct supervision to the corporate enterprises,' McMullin says. 'That's done through the respective boards and their executive teams.'"
Plain English: "The 1stP, Q12, and Q70s all hold board of director seats in all our enterprises. They determine policy and it is up to the executive flunkies to handle implementation and management on a day-to-day level. Just like any other corporation anywhere."
Money Quote: "'That's the toughest thing about an organization that's owned by the church, because you don't want to disappoint them, and you don't want them to have to worry about what you're doing, because they have better things to think about.'"
Plain English: "If you fuck up, not only your own Eternal Salvation but also that of your family is at stake. So don't fuck up."
Money Quote: "'Do we go around in frocks and pray all the time? The answer is no, we run these like businesses,' says McMullin. 'I have over there a set of scriptures-see those black books over there? Do I consult those scriptures every time I make a decision? The answer is no. Do I look to them for guiding and eternal principles on which good, sound decisions are made? The answer is yes.'"
Plain English: "Do we look like those sanctimonious Catholics to you? Do we run around having our Vatican Bank crises aired in public? No we do not. That is because we don't pretend to be a church with a little business on the side: we are a full-on corporate enterprise hiding behind the façade of a church. Do I run my business the same way they did in Bibical times? Well, sure, if it's still legal and we can make money off it, why not? LOL!"
Money Quote: "'I think the reason to have businesses is to communicate and try and have influence, whether it's through a book, or through a blog, or a website, or a TV station, or radio stations, a newspaper, whatever it is,' says Dew [...]"
Plain English: "The reason we do things this way is because in the modern world you can really control peoples' thinking more efficiently and completely if you approach that control from a corporate model rather than those outdated religious models. Media is King!"
Money Quote: "'Though the church's monetary donations are significant, much of the 'value' of our service is not monetary, but in the hundreds of thousands of hours of service and the talent and expertise given by church members to help others around the world.'"
Plain English: "You Gentiles always complain that we are the skinflints of the charity world. Are you kidding? We give MILLIONS away! But even more than the money we give away, we give STUFF away! Why, on a regular basis we empty all the unsellable junk out of the back of our D.I. warehouses and ship it all off to Third World dumps like Uganda, Haiti and the Philippines where I assure you, our industrious little brown brothers and sisters perform wonders of recycling!!! I tell you, it's simply miraculous what some people can do with rags and bits of old metal and plastic!!!"
Money Quote: "According to McMullin, DMC alone employs 1,400 'people who are volunteering their time and their services-some are part-time and some are volunteer.' [...] When you look at what these companies do, they are for the purpose of lifting and strengthening people. If individuals want to come and enlist and participate in that endeavor and do so voluntarily, and the paid enterprises can provide resources and expertise to help them, I think it's a wonderful marriage.'"
Plain English: "We have developed a system that is so incredibly profitable and of such unbelievable GENIUS I don't know why other corporations haven't found a way to take advantage of it with their customers. Put simply: we trade the promise of a product we will never have to deliver in exchange for free labor! And all these suckers fall for it! Can you believe it?!?"
Money Quote: "'Who wouldn't want to show up Simon and Schuster?' asks Dew. 'I mean, this is capitalist America, isn't it?'"
Plain English: [no translation necessary]
"Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?"
It certainly is, Gordie. Your cult's single-minded fascination with the accumulation of filthy lucre, that is. In its simple uncomplicated hunger it is like a little kid dreaming of pirate's treasure.
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