Amongst all this May 21 “The End Is Nigh” bullshit, people are too busy selling all their worldly possessions or laughing their asses off to take this into account…
At the center of it all, Camping’s organization, Family Radio, is perfectly happy to take your money — and in fact, received $80 million in contributions between 2005 and 2009. Camping founded Family Radio, a nonprofit Christian radio network based in Oakland, Calif. with about 65 stations across the country, in 1958.
But not even all of his own employees are convinced that the world is ending on Saturday. In fact, many still plan on showing up at work on Monday.
“I don’t believe in any of this stuff that’s going on, and I plan on being here next week,” a receptionist at their Oakland headquarters told CNNMoney.
A program producer in Illinois told us, “We’re going to continue doing what we’re doing.”
Oh, I’m sure you are, which is ripping people off in the one of the lowest ways possible. This is the same Harold Camping, after all, that told us the world was going to end in 1994. While he broke the Golden Rule of religion – never present a testable claim – he also kept in mind that sheep have short attention spans.
According to their most recent IRS filings, Family Radio is almost entirely funded by donations, and brought in $18 million in contributions in 2009 alone. According to those financial documents, accountants put the total worth of Family Radio (referred to as Family Stations on its official forms) at $72 million.
Most of the group’s net worth is tied up in FCC broadcasting licenses, valued at $56 million. Family Radio claimed it held only $1.5 million in cash on its books at the end of 2009. The paperwork shows Camping has so far, never taken a penny for his own salary, but Family Radio has plenty of other paid employees.
At the ripe old age of 89, he seems to be living quite well for someone who doesn’t make any money. After all, if it’s not on paper, it must not exist, right? Bernie Madoff thought the same thing.
The nonprofit employed about 350 people and paid them a collective $8.3 million — or roughly $23,000 per person — in 2009.
Meanwhile, some employees are questioning the meaning of Harold Camping’s goodbye letter sent to the Family Radio mailing list last week. While he says farewell, he encourages employees to “steadfastly continue to stand with us to proclaim the Gospel through Family Radio.”
Yeah, he seems to have a lot of obvious holes in his story, doesn’t he? Why would he request a November extension to file their financial paperwork when the world is ending in October? Dodging your obligations isn’t a “family value” that I’m aware of. I’ve also read that at least $100 million was spent on the recent ad campaign alone, which Camping’s own producer called a “conservative estimate,” so that means a hell of a lot more money was made to keep everybody paid. I can’t wait to see the paperwork (or lack thereof) for that one.
Even 80% of his own employees freely admit that he’s full of shit, yet they still cash those paychecks funded by other people’s stupidity every week, don’t they? The Catholic Church is full of the same type of callous apathy towards its largely poor followers, but they could definitely learn something from these guys. Around here, all the churches are closing, but business seems to be booming in the Family Radio doomsday bunker.
After all, Camping has made it quite clear that no refunds will be available on Sunday…
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