Bob Dylan wrote a great song to listen to while you're on the way out the door:
[video=youtube;Ld6fAO4idaI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld6fAO4idaI[/video]
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
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To those still in...
Your doubts are REAL! It's not your bank, it's YOU! Get the f**k out of there NOW!
The way out is the way through (the nearest exit door).
Please get here by Thursday @ 2:00 p.m.!!!!!!
(just kidding about that last line, but not about the rest!)
If you are on staff, use the on-line estimator for your Social Security retirement benefits based on your annual contributions and reporting.
https://www.ssa.gov/retire/estimator.html
Then back in the opportunity cost of working for the church to your current and estimated wages over your lifetime.
Just for example and not using any specific calculation, if you are being paid $50. a week and due to low contributions or no reporting your retirement benefit is reduced by $700. per month, then you are effectively paying $200, a month to not get $550. later (after you have been Fitness Boarded). I'm pretty sure the actual calculations will be much worse.
When you are young and invincible and in your prime producing years we don't think about this until it is too late to do much about it.
Conversely, any long term benefits that you give up by being on staff are converted into an opportunity benefit to the Church so it is in their interest for staff to not understand how Social Security benefits work.
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What is an "Opportunity Cost"?
Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, an opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made. This cost is, therefore, most relevant for two mutually exclusive events. In investing, it is the difference in return between a chosen investment and one that is necessarily passed up.
I know of a few full time FSM's that have elected to forgo SS benefits per the IRS rules:
https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/340...oups-exempt-from-paying-Social-Security-taxes
Those FSM's waived their rights to receive SS and Medicare benefits, and forgo their paying into the system for many years.
They told me it was a big mistake to do so, after many years from being a full time FSM.
This has everything to do with the COS getting IRS ok to be a religion.
Unfortunately it fucks over people big time, and the culprit is the COS and not the IRS, because the COS does not explain it to it's members, nor does the COS provide benefits for being a constant member.
Out exchange.
Go figure.
If a person meets even the most minimum qualifications they may still get a monthly SS benefit but by the time they are old enough to receive it, the minimum payout in relation to the cost of living will probably be subsistence level. Inflation indexes are deliberately rigged so cost of living adjustments don't keep up with inflation and they sure don't reflect the actual cost of housing.
What was his last name??Charley was in the sea org since the mid-to-late seventies up until the late nineties or early 2000s, I don't know which. He was receiving $600 a month from Social Security. This is why he was having to live in a trailer in a muddy field when he died.