Org income drop in 2012?

[Auditor's Toad]

I have a friend who has lived in Clearwater for many years. This friend tells me there was a time in downtown Clearwater when most of the people one saw during the day was hordes of people in white uniforms.

This friend says over the last year or so, in comparison to earlier years, the white uniforms are far fewer as in foot traffic between their buildings.

An overall ' just-ain't-what-it used-to be ' in terms of people... but they still buy buildings.

And in LA another friend says on L Rot Way there isn't - at any time of day or night - many people compared to what there used to be. Says except during 'events' it is no problem to find a parking place either in the lots or on nearby streets.

Sounds like the numbers just aren't what they used to be.

An Hemet is approaching a ghost town compared to what it used to be in terms of activity according to my friend who is there with great frequency. He wonders if they mover to somewhere else ?

[Smilla]

I suspect that many people are just quietly slipping away, whilst remaining technically n good standing and moving on to other things in life.

[NoName]

One of the interesting comments the data chief made is that she was the one who had to find the good stats for DM to trumpet at events, and this became harder and harder. And she left years ago

I can see how a bunch of glossy pictures with DM opening an Idle Morgue with a bunch of the same 50 Sea Org folk in the audience might accomplish that in appearance.

Does DM really care about the good stats he's trumpetting actually being accurate? I long ago got the impression that no one cared about the truth on those stupid numberless graphs.

As an aside, take a look at the completion lists in Advance and Freedom pre- and post- project Chanology. They were trending downward to begin with, but absolutely TANKED since 08.

[Terril park]

I can see how a bunch of glossy pictures with DM opening an Idle Morgue with a bunch of the same 50 Sea Org folk in the audience might accomplish that in appearance.

Does DM really care about the good stats he's trumpetting actually being accurate? I long ago got the impression that no one cared about the truth on those stupid numberless graphs.

As an aside, take a look at the completion lists in Advance and Freedom pre- and post- project Chanology. They were trending downward to begin with, but absolutely TANKED since 08.

I suspected tanking after 2008. Can you post thios data?

[lkwdblds]

The orgs have always been run on a shoestring, doing things on the cheap or not at all. Failing to pay staff their $50 per week. Failing even to maintain a stock of toilet paper. Failing to pay their utility bills for so long that they actually end up paying additional fees when they get a disconnection visit, and so on...

The funny thing is, the orgs have survived for so many years on the knife-edge of bankruptcy that they won't actually recognise that there is a problem. We've already seen staff having to sit in their cars because they can't afford to heat their building, or using cellphones because the telephone company has disconnected their land lines.

Doing things on the cheap is 100% standard Hubbard tech. It was LRH himself who wrote the policy about never paying bills promptly. In one sense it makes the business quite robust, because it maintains liquid cash reserves for as long as humanly (thetanly?) possible. In another sense, it does a lot of harm to Scientology's veneer of prosperity and respectability; too many creditors have had to take them to court, and too many of them refuse to do business with the cult ever again. Word gets around! Scientology orgs are on a 'cash in advance' basis with most businesses in their neighbourhoods, now.

Any business that's on the skids has to cut back on the luxuries, and few businesses have ever been as thoroughly devoid of comfort or luxury as the customer-facing orgs of the Scientology cult. That keeps them staggering on for quite a long time, but only through emergency donations from long-time Scientology victims. With virtually no 'raw meat' to become the donors of the future, you have to wonder how long the charade can continue.

This doesn't pose a problem for the Midget, of course. At least, not in the short term. He's sitting on all the cash that was sent up-lines in previous years, although that seems to be reserved for gifts for celebrities, and out-of-court settlements.

Good post in general but I take a slight exception to your one paragraph about doing things on the cheap is 100% standard Hubbard tech.

I was Director of Disbursements at Celebrity in L.A. from Oct. '71 to Oct '73 and was fully hatted in Disbursements. Our VFP (Valuabel Final Product) in Disubursements was "Pleased Creditors" and there was no specific Policy Letter encouraging not paying bills promptly. It did frequently happen, however, that bills were not paid promptly.

The way this came about is that from Org Income, money was taken off the top immediately and sent to Flag, At the time, this was 10% and then another 10% was taken and applied to the "Building Fund" which was basically org reserves This left 80% for disbursements and off the top of that was taken the staff food allotment and staff payroll. After that, the 10% was taken for date line back bill payment and the balance was paid to creditors such as rent, office supplies, printing, postage etc.

Usually we did not have sufficient money to pay all our bills. The unpaid bills went on to what was called our dateline. These were bills paid in date order from the 10% set aside. In those days, Org datelines for the PAC area Orgs, CC, LA Org, AOLA and ASHO were running about 6 months or a little less.

If an Org's dateline went over 6 months, it became a big red Flag which brought attention from Flag. 6 months was considered bad but tolerable. A 3 month dateline was considered good and 2 month very good. Everytime we could not pay a creditor, such as Kelly Paper Co., we would have to write them a letter, telling them that Scn was growing and expanding but this month there was a slight hitch and their bill had to be place on dateline for payment. We would tell them when the dateline was. At CCLA, in late 1973, we actually got our deadline down to only 30 days.

The date line had to be met. There were no excuses. If a bill scheduled to be paid on the date line could not be paid then staff pay was cut or we went of beans and rice and cut the food budget. Hubbard was concerned that creditors be payed because of PR. If a company paid their bills on time he believed that would gain him good PR and vice versa.

Incidentally, Hubbard specifically forbid earning interest on money's in Org accounts. We had an Org reserve account with about $4,200 in it in 1971 money which is probably $25k in today's money and it was in a checking account so as not to earn interest. At the time, the banks were paying about 4% interest on savings accounts but Hubbard's policy stated that he did not want to take bank interest money.
Lakey

[NoName]

I suspected tanking after 2008. Can you post thios data?

Terril, I never crunched the numbers myself, but I offer the following:

Patti (Pooks) posted Advance Magazines here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3d89l7bnbo84z

And Source Magazines here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yii47wv4dypo1

I went through them looking for some of my friends, and as an aside I noticed that around 2005-2006 the completions were one full page of names, and a second page that was 1/3 picture of graduates and the rest more names.

After 2008, the trend I saw was ONE PAGE that was 1/2 photo and 1/2 names. I can't tell you when in 08. I think I had that cog somewhere around 09-10. I was going through the magazines in chronological order.

That's a pretty steep drop, imho. I didn't graph anything, and frankly don't care to. The magazine layouts speak for themselves - I don't need to quantify it to know that the Co$ is in deep doo-doo.

[oneonewasaracecar]

... He maintains a tiny veneer of churchiness to maintain tax exempt status, and does a kewl 50% per year or so return on investment on the reserve accounts...

50% is impossible. Consider these 2 facts:

1) A typical annual inflation rate is in the single digits 1-10%.

Source: http://inflationdata.com/inflation/i...inflation.aspx,

2)

In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth

Source: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States

So consider the logic of 50% return on investment. Given a conservative 10% inflation every year, there would be a 40% increase in real wealth. Your 40% above the inflation means you would have a 40% larger stake in the nations wealth.

That would mean in 2008, the 1% would own 48.4%. In 2009 it would be 67.8%, then in 2010, 94.9%, and in 2011, 132.9%. This is obviously impossible.

[lkwdblds]

50% is impossible. Consider these 2 facts:

1) A typical annual inflation rate is in the single digits 1-10%.

Source: http://inflationdata.com/inflation/i...inflation.aspx,

2)

Source: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States

So consider the logic of 50% return on investment. Given a conservative 10% inflation every year, there would be a 40% increase in real wealth. Your 40% above the inflation means you would have a 40% larger stake in the nations wealth.

That would mean in 2008, the 1% would own 48.4%. In 2009 it would be 67.8%, then in 2010, 94.9%, and in 2011, 132.9%. This is obviously impossible.

I am sorry but I don't believe that your model is correct. You are assuming the top 1% of the population would, as a whole, net 40% gain year after year and that the other 99% stays flat or just grows at the rate of inflation. That is not what is being proposed here.

Someone is suggesting that Scio's building account grew at a net rate of 50% minus inflation. Inflation is typically in the 2% to 3% range in the US but that is not really relevant here.

There is a rule of thumb that to find out how long it will take money to double at a certain rate, using compound interest, you divide your interest rate by into 72. This gives a close estimate. Money invested at 6% will double in 12 years, at 10% it will double in 7.2 years, at 24% in 3 years and at 50% it would double in about 1.5 years.

Let's say that Scio's reserve account is $20,000 and is invested at 50%. First of all, nothing pays 50% interest on a regular basis so it would have to be invested in something speculative such as the stock market or real estate. However, for conversations sake, lets say it's guaranteed at 50% interest. In about 1.5 years it would grow to $40,000, in 3 years it would grow to $80k, in 4.5 years to $160k, in 6 years to $160k, in 10 years, it would grow to $640k. This is an amazing rate of growth to be guaranteed 50% and it is not going to happen.

My point is that even if it did happen, after 10 years, $20k would grow to $640K. $640 k is still tiny in an economy counting in the $trillions. Nothing about the economy in general, the top 1%, the other 99% etc. would have any effect whatsoever on how this investment grew. Of course, if you carried it our long enough, the growth would have to slow down. For example, once the money got up to say $1 billion, nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to pay 50% interest guaranteed on an investment of $1billion.

Hubbard's policy forbid Org money to be invested with banks. Investing in real estate is the current rage with Scio management. In real estate, growth is speculative but up until 2008, the trend was strongly up. Huge amounts could be made in a year, if the money was leveraged. Hubbard never allowed leveraging, he insisted that everything be fully purchased with cash. 50% annually could never be guaranteed indefinitely in real estate. After 2008, we have seen that real estate can also lose in value.
Lakey

[Drgong]

Anyone who saying they can get 50% ROI is selling you some Ponzi deal. It just does not happen folks. 05% ROI is much more reasonable. Government inflation is understated as they do not include food or fuel costs.


Still, 05% ROI is not bad if you have a billion to invest. That is fifty million a year to spend. As a note, Madoff was claiming 12% and people where thinking it was a great investor.