Full Service Organization

Feel like a shopping spree? A brand new 2 billion dollar mall is waiting for you. Need a book? They've got a publishing house for you too. Newspapers. Radiostations. A million acres of farmland, so they probably grow something you need too. Insurance? Got you covered. How about a nice vacation in a tropical theme park? Got you covered there also. The network of corporations that have all this stuff are all completely owned by one other corporation, which is owned, in corporation sole, by one man.

They've got some universities too. That's not all, of course, most of their business is highly secret.

I probably should have mentioned that they can also provide spiritual consolation, or at least spiritual something, as well. In fact, the chances are that they have a church in your town, at least if you live in the American West.

For Mormons God and Mammon are on the same side. Such, at least, is the story Caroline Winter tells in her Business Week story called How the Mormons Make Money. Pretty interesting, though hardly scandalous - unless you count the tax avoidance parts.

And, oh yeah, the one guy who owns it all: Church President and living Prophet Thomas S. Monson.

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