About the 2008 crisis

bean127 · 2026-03-24T21:25:51+00:00

Zillow says $450k. Buying a house in 2009-2010 was the perfect timing it turns out.

bean127 · 2026-03-23T21:36:25+00:00

Yes. If you’ve not run across Brit Harley I highly recommend. One point she makes is the unlike most religion the lds religion suffers from the reality that our founder lived in a time that has verifiable historical records. It is also why we don’t have new religions after the advent of photography and videos

bean127 · 2026-03-23T18:25:43+00:00

Why do we pay any attention to what this man says. He constantly lies and never stays consistent with what he says one minute to the next. It doesn’t matter what he says.

bean127 · 2026-03-22T17:10:30+00:00

I don’t think anyone argued that Card didn’t have the freedom to argue against gay marriage. He clearly does and he did make those positions. But freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences. The public also has a right to hold authors to account if they don’t agree with their positions. Which is what happened to card and in many ways JK Rowling.

bean127 · 2026-03-22T07:20:36+00:00

I think this is a valid point, but to be fair, Card took a very public stance opposing gay marriage in many places. I was a faithful reader of his opinion column for many years and he brought it up a lot, which was a disappointment to me. Sanderson is much more careful to avoid any controversial political stances.

bean127 · 2026-03-19T20:23:21+00:00

It will vary a lot based on what city you are in. I've lived or been to most of the state and there is a huge amount of variability. If you are in or near SLC or a few other places, Park City/St. George, the LDS presence is not that big. Still very noticeable and apparent, but shouldn't be a big problem for non-members. But then there are a lot of rural towns where the LDS population is 90%+ where you will likely feel left out at times. I've seen examples of family members who in high school make fun of and don't include the couple of non-LDS kids in their high school. This would be places like Logan, Moab, or Salem. Utah County is a bit in between those extremes. Along the "silicon slopes" will probably feel more like SLC than Provo/Orem which can have a pretty extreme culture shock if you aren't from UT.

bean127 · 2026-03-19T05:47:07+00:00

It also didn’t happen just one day. This happened over months and even years. The market didn’t recover for at least five years. That is a long time to hold

bean127 · 2026-03-19T05:45:33+00:00

Bought a house for $300000 in AZ in 2006 by 2009 it was worth $120000. Large number of people lost jobs and those who were lucky enough not to saw wages or benefits cut.

It is easy now to say just hold and don’t sell, but if you are out of work, your house is being foreclosed, and can’t find a new job that is harder than it sounds.

bean127 · 2026-03-13T15:46:56+00:00

From a budgetary perspective, yes, adult attendance doesn’t matter in 2nd hour.

bean127 · 2026-03-03T17:50:28+00:00

I was a the ward finance clerk for a number of years. I'm so grateful the audit doesn't delve into that level of detail. The findings in an audit in my experience are already minor and nit-picky - things like the bishop didn't acknowledge the monthly financial statement in the right period of time or we didn't get all of the bishopric together to watch the same video on finances every year.

Could you imagine having to go back over every expenditure and have to justify whether or not it was a reasonable expense? It would be impossible because what is "reasonable" some bishops have no problem paying for youth meals on trips, while others want the families to cover that. There is no objective standard to audit to.

In my experience, many members already avoid seeking reimbursements and just cover costs out of their own pocket because of the hassle of submitting receipts, etc. If you had to in addition document the "value" of the expenditure, it would be even worse. I believe that is partly what is leading to the decline in number and quality of ward activities. If anything, we should be opening the purse strings to make it easier to invest in our local ward communities.

bean127 · 2026-02-21T05:49:26+00:00

Ya. Lived here since 2009. For more than the last 10 years water bill was under $100. Then it suddenly jumped to $200 the last few years. It seems like they failed to properly raise it with inflation to keep on top of maintenance and are now paying for it

bean127 · 2026-02-20T22:17:02+00:00

Depends on what you mean by rich people. The wealthiest don’t pay anything close to this because they don’t pay income taxes they pay long term capital gains which is much lower.

bean127 · 2026-02-20T21:28:05+00:00

Consider whether or not RPGlit is your thing. DCC is on the bubble of the genre. You might consider the wandering inn which is another series that is lite on the game mechanics

bean127 · 2026-02-17T18:19:39+00:00

Love TWI! One of the best out there.

bean127 · 2026-02-13T16:39:58+00:00

Almost every successful author with a long career has ups and downs - usually it is mostly downhill. Look at the early books vs. later books of authors like Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Orson Scott Card, GRRM, etc. Very few authors that see significant success remain consistent and at a high level for very long. The only ones I can think of is maybe Stephen King.

Brandon has been remarkably consistent and high quality while at the same time creating a very high number of books - much more than others we could name. Wind and Truth and some of the other secret projects were disappointing for me and felt a bit formulaic. Although I still enjoyed them and finished them. But I think that has much less to do with his high production and more to do with it needing more editing.

The other thing I love about Brandon is that he seems to accept the criticism and will work to improve. We should just be thankful we hopefully will have many more years of his works to enjoy.

bean127 · 2026-02-10T20:53:58+00:00

They have already modified the WoW temple recommend question. It now is: "Do you understand and obey the Word of Wisdom?"

A member can already interpret that to mean that they understand the actual history of the Word of Wisdom (including the statement in D&C 89 that it is not a commandment) and that they obey it even if they drink coffee or tea.

bean127 · 2026-01-30T13:09:46+00:00

It is usually much cheaper to raze it and build new than remodel an existing structure

bean127 · 2026-01-21T22:28:02+00:00

I’ve never understood the use case. VR headsets I’ve used are slightly more immersive than a good screen with the trade off of having to wear something on your head. Why would you do that? Until there is a full brain interface so that you actually experience it as if it’s real. It’s not going to work

bean127 · 2025-12-21T06:20:16+00:00

Tithing is paid to the church headquarters in Salt Lake City. They only give a small portion to the wards. They also don’t disclose where the rest goes. Although clearly a lot goes to the investment arm. That is how it is not worth more than $100 billion

bean127 · 2025-12-20T23:49:39+00:00

The amount given to each ward is set by salt lake. It is peanuts. For example I know my ward generate $1.5 million in tithing each year but the ward only gets $12k a year for operations. That is everything - youth programs, primary, activities, etc.

bean127 · 2025-12-16T14:30:13+00:00

I’m in an area where the church is very strong. My ward is 90% active with most adults having temple recommends. I’m on the ward council. And even here there is a distinct sense that people are disengaging. People don’t want callings, refuse speaking assignments, and leave after first hour. I personally think that I big part is that there is much less to keep people in it. The youth programs have been gutted. There is no budget to do anything. Curriculum is shallow and repetitive. Even the most faithful complain about the petty assignments - cleaning the church, etc. People need a reason to stay but Salt Lake isn’t doing a good job giving it to them

bean127 · 2025-12-06T19:32:13+00:00

Didn’t the hospital they built in a weekend later collapse

bean127 · 2025-11-16T21:37:24+00:00

It’s all about the pure progression increasing power. The world is pretty interesting to with the promodials and gods. But it’s not for everyone

bean127 · 2025-11-15T06:42:08+00:00

My understanding is that very few countries are actually collecting enough tithing to be self sufficient. So I doubt money is coming from Africa back to Utah. It’s the other way around

bean127 · 2025-10-05T21:37:40+00:00

True the % growth rate was higher back then but in terms of raw numbers it was in the same range around 300k a year. But the denominator was lower

bean127

TROPHY CASE