Article: Romney's Reference to the Mormon Church Employee Retirement Fund and Bain Capital.

In his GOP acceptance speech last evening candidate Romney talked about when he and partners organized Bain Capital, he thought of asking the church to invest its Employee Pension Fund in Bain Capital; he said he demurred. Whether that is true or not I cannot answer.
But what I can answer is that unless there has been a very big change of heart in the past 41 years, there is no such thing as an Employee Pension Fund. Nor is there a participation in the Social Security program.

It is very unlikely that any member of the church that has not been through a temple is an employee. In the ceremonies to which a patron has to commit is an oath of the consecration of everything one owns including life itself to the "kingdom'. The Kingdom is another title for the church and it is anticipatory of the time when the ecclesiastical kingdom or the church becomes the secular Kingdom of the Mormon God that I have recently exposed.

With that kind of commitment is unlikely that the church has changed its policy regarding pensions or participation in the Social Security program.

Prior to 1971 there was no age restriction as to how old an employee would have to be to retire. That policy was akin to the policy of the members of the First Presidency and the quorum of the Twelve Apostles who had life tenure during times of good behavior. In fact life tenure is the determining factor in the selection of the next Prophet, Seer, Revelator, President or ecclesiastical "King" of the church. Somehow god regulates the life of the one he wants at the head of the church.

Also prior to 1971 the employees of the church had the assurance that as long as they were able to perform their work they could keep the jobs. For many who had spent the greater part of their life in service to the church it was something of a sense of security that they could plan their life especially when growing into their senior years. In 1971 that began to change.

Probably due to the hiring of a professional Human Relations expert, lifetime tenure was tossed out the window. So that employees who had spent their entire working life in service to the church were discharged upon reaching the age of 65. In my Memoirs, Under the Mormon Tree, I discuss the impact on two men who had spent their whole life in service to the church.

Paul Woodruff and Julian Cannon were the same age and both had engineering degrees in the fields of building construction. As such they were hired right out of the University of Utah upon graduation at the age of 22 to work in the church building Department. Both men were my associates and supervisors during the time I worked in the same department in early 1952. Oh yes, I was aware of the negative Break Room discussions about wages at that time!

In the fall of 1971 I had an opportunity to visit with both of these men during an unexpected stay over in Salt Lake City after moving my daughter to BYU.

I found them both distressed at the prospect of forced retirement. Paul would be retired before Julian since Julian had the responsibility of finishing out the new Church tower at 50 East North Temple, Therefore his forced retirement would be delayed until all but the interior of the top 4 floors of the building were complete.

As to the top four floors Julian reported he had no interior plans and no idea what those floors would used for except he said, "they were being built like a fort". In my memoirs I discuss what the intended use was.

Being Mormons and following the advocacy of "Let nature take its course", they, like other devout Mormons not using birth control, had large families. In Julian's case at age 65 he had two daughters still in college needing his support. The prospect of having to find another job upon forced retirement without pension or Social Security was a depressing future for both of them.

If Mitt Romney did in fact think of approaching the church to invest its employee pension fund in Bain Capital created when he was 37; that would be 28 years ago or in 1984 just 13 years after the Paul/Julian discharge and Mitt's thought of tapping the fund. Perhaps he discovered in 1984 there was no employee fund and that is why he didn't or couldn't tap it. One would hope that the church has resolved that issue in favor of its employees by now.

Incidentally, Mitt's acceptance speech also raised some other issues. Has anyone done the math on how Mitt could amass a fortune of 250 million in just 28 years after all legitimate deductibles had been taken? That amounts to more than $892,857.00 per year in savings accumulated after living expenses for a large Mormon family! It seems we are not being told something here. Likely he has paid no taxes with his offshore banking scams. Harry Reid even though a fellow Mormon, is right in demanding that Mitt open his tax returns for at least 10 of those last 28 eight years. We the people need to know what he is hiding and how his wealth impacts the middle class of America.