I am wondering what the overall accounting comes to at this point.
money that should have been around for 2016 expenses:
.........................................
Somebody help me make sense of where that million dollars went.
Agree
Per Alec, they sold Axanar Productions' interest in the studio, so Axanar Productions should not be investing in that asset anymore.
My understanding, which I state upfront is limited, is there is zero evidence of fact to support this happened. As well as zero evidence of fact that it did not happen.
Agree
I don't know. Do you think a complete tally of where the money went will be revealed during the possible impending jury trial?
I don't. My, again
limited, understanding is that there are hundreds of ways to render unclear money amounts and facts on where it is and where it went. I will grant that the IRS, who's only mandate is Find And Follow The Money, does this well. That's all they do and they never give up until they find out to their satisfaction. Though examining where it is and where it went in Court cases often finds itself running into limitations, each time with contest at each juncture available to both parties. Contesting each point eats up time and money so it is my limited understanding that compromise in what is of overall benefit for a plaintiff/defendant is 'sometimes' seen to be the better choice when trying to force details.
There is a LOT of money unaccounted for, over $500,000. I think this is going to be way worse than anyone imagined.
I'll speak for myself here and say I think this is certainly going to be way worse than I would have ever imagined.
Oh I don't know...........I think a lot of us knew it was going to be this bad..
Yes. Once I started my own
limited ability to backtrack this whole thing from the point where I, a donor/supporter, stopped in my tracks and said 'This is bs', even I began finding numbers of people who had been seeing it coming. And further back seeing where this had all happened before. Numbers of people who had for years and long before this whole thing began.... who experienced all of this in previous dealings, who had, yes, been placing warning beacons on the Internet. And all the warnings consistently spoke to a pattern of behavior of social and business misconduct, duplicity, possible inept business acumen, deception, refusal of accountability.
Which kept taking me more and more aback as I kept looking backward at the scope of it and the numbers of warnings that had for years been being set out. Not only set out by one or two people over and over, but numbers of people setting out individual warnings as these numbers grew.
And for me emerged a picture of dual personality; one affable, enthusiastic, charismatic, energetic, pretty doggone terrific if you ask me.... as well as a darker one demonstrating of lack of empathy, aggressiveness, poor insight, lack of judgment, vindictiveness, bullying, blaming, self-serving and even sometimes inept business practices, refusal of accountability, intolerance to anything but unquestioning support.
So I think donors need to start asking where is the million and require the conversation start from the numbers cited, which are Alec's own statements to the public and a likely-accurate estimate of his total fundraising take (let him dispute it), and a reasonable estimate of what it would take to get through this year.
Don't let him establish a handwaving alternate higher starting point (erasing his prior claims) with a self serving commission. Don't score points and leave it at that.
Preempt another round of revisionism by forcing him *now* to justify from the baseline he has already stated. Put the numbers up in the FB group as an evergreen document being constantly added to from the starting point (not swapped out), asking him to justify any differences between his prior public statements and the cash that should be on hand as deltas to the baseline -- the 2015 transparent financial report.
Don't let any sock puppets deflect it or try to swap out the baseline of comparison. Don't let him delay by saying auditors will explain it all in good time. Don't let him say its hater talk and walk away. Its his numbers put to the public, its a simple clear interpretation.
Take whatever he says and attach it as his corrections, but make it a live document he has to add to, not replace. He needs to justify the changes from the baseline. This is the only way to force the path of the money out into the open. If there are corrections to his public statements to be gleaned from court filings, attach those as corrections as well.
Start with his public statements, show how the real situation is different, don't ever drop the starting point he said to donors. Keep the "Where is the Million" document alive and being updated, nail it to his green screen. Make all the "oops" and "revisions" and attempts to swap out history stand out as deltas to a point of comparison, his original claims.
If he has a hundred thousand over the estimate for this year (its just an estimate), and the rest is in an escrow or otherwise waiting to make Axanar (not in some shell corp somewhere), then that's great. But where the money is or went has to be answered, explicitly, as deltas (or escrows) to his baseline claims and reasonable 2016 "paused" costs.
And recall, according to his 2015 report, all that money that went to him and others for expenses and salaries was included in his numbers *already*. This million is *above* what he claimed for those expenses for 2015 *and* 2016 (assuming the 120k estimate being in the ballpark as compared to prior year's claimed salaries and expenses for "paused" admin staff being paid 36k or less per year and incidental reimbursements).
I am saying donors need to ask 'where is the million'. It gives the issue a certain clarity.
Carlos has documented a lot of the prior costs. I am not proposing he take up such a 'biased' POV (asking where is the money directly) on his website. He analyzes it into submission :-) (see suggestion for a ledger, below) . But the baseline question I think needs to be more explicitly asked by donors as a basic push. Where is this million?
I am not on FB. If a FB participant feels the analysis is accurate, they are welcome to use it. I do not need anyone to propose it in my name or give credit. If the concept is clear, please run with it. The numbers for the income are all in Carlos' materials or the court case. Its a very simple question arising from easily sourced numbers. Anyone could reasonably ask it. It is a simple assessment that most readers could come to a judgment on in a few seconds as to whether they want to run with it as a starting point for questions about the money.
My suggestions at length to force this inquiry to be an evergreen 'added to' document rather than one that constantly gets replaced is to hold Axanar's feet to the fire in a way that is not relieved by people moving the baseline.
There has to be some baseline they are accountable to, so that any attempts at manipulation are visible and not concealed as "oh look what is being said now" with a baseline reset. Answering challenges to a financial claim with a revised financial claim, moving the baseline, is the most basic weasel tactic. All changes to what he said at the end of 2015 need to stand out as after the fact revisions, or new expenditures, or escrow, or the like. Not buried in a swap-out of prior accounting.
The 2015 report seems like a good baseline (flawed as it appears in retrospect, it is his 'claimed true and transparently complete by him' statement to donors), and this is where the prelude and Axanar costs and even Alec's accounting of the disputed 'personal benefits' of studio acquisition and salaries/expenses come from, according to what I see in Carlos' documentation. Let Axanar Productions have that as its starting point for this question. The million appears to be even over and above all that.
Be clear -- with a board of hand-picked "experts" Axanar Productions clearly has the opportunity to swap out prior financial statements for new ones and make excuses or claim some bumbling to get out from under knowingly having made the prior statements. These changes need to be called out detail by detail as after the fact attempts to walk back public statements, and as revisionist folding in of unexpected, unreasonable expenses into that swap-out by tactics like replacing the investment and operating costs in prior statements with new historical baselines thus inflating current costs. All changes need to be in a separate ledger, "where is the million over and above publicly stated income and operating costs baseline? Here's what they revised to explain it. Here's what the court case revealed as a discrepancy from prior statements, that explains it. Here's what's unaccounted or murkily accounted for or in something that looks like a shelter from being spent on an Axanar film, that is still in effect a gap.".
So... WOW... awesome... needed... important... How can this get accomplished?
I will speak only from my own experience in this whole thing.... I often cannot 'hear' someone who has truth as they see it (even if it is the truth as *I* see it) if they are beating me over the head with it. What I instead see... is the person speaking. I can only see them and not hear what they are saying.
And this is a common human trait; push me I'll push back. Yell at me I'll walk away or yell back. Judge me and what I think I'll judge and I'll get sidetracked by my own judgments of you.
Not only am I seeing 'this whole thing' populated by principles and supporters standing at the fence screaming at me and saying vile things about me, my intelligence, my worth as a person...... I am seeing my side of the fence also populated with people screaming back the truth as they -and I- see it, saying vile things about the principles and supporters, their intelligence, their worth as people.
And we all have our own and very valid reasons and frustrations for doing this!!
But I'm asking my own self 'what am I wanting to accomplish with all the facts as interpreted by me at this point in 'this whole thing'?'
Am I wanting to continue to vent my frustration about this whole thing because that is an entirely valid need!
Am I wanting to give back in kind what I'm getting, which is an entirely normal urge.
Am I wanting to make available the truth as I interpret it to people I think are trapped in an emotional attachment, caught up in living in an echo chamber, being fed misinformation and emotional comfort by persons undeserving of unquestioned support. Who are promoting a financial self-serving enterprise and who time and again demonstrate they will only continue to embrace these people if they continue to provide unquestioning adoration accolade and their donations.
I experience the need to vent. I experience anger & frustration. I experience the urge to give back what I'm being given.
But what I 'want' is to provide some way for those other persons screaming at me and patting themselves on the back in their closed community that feeds them emotionally and censures not only dissent but has stunted their abilities to conceive of personal dissent. For them to feel safe enough 'from' me to just begin to start, for themselves, listening to bits and peaces of what I'm finding out.
I could see what muCephi is suggesting, if I'm understanding it correctly I mean, to offer just such a thing.
As I understand it,
and correct me if I'm wrong, it is a place that invites comparison. Like:
Mr. Lane's assertion:
"He isn’t the same character, despite having the same name" (sorry I can't yet find the original source of the quote but you get the picture)
--ALONG SIDE--
The Production's assertion:
"Axanar is the story of Garth of Izar, the legendary Starfleet captain who is Captain Kirk’s hero. We met Garth in the third season TOS episode Whom Gods Destroy. Kirk called Garth the role model for all future Starfleet Officers. Garth charted more planets than any other Captain and was the hero of the Battle of Axanar, the story of which is required reading at the academy. This is that story."
If I've got this right, just the 'comparison' of existing data. And without the ability to change the data if it becomes rewritten at the source?
@muCephi "There has to be some baseline they are accountable to, so that any attempts at manipulation are visible and not concealed as "oh look what is being said now" with a baseline reset"
I would have no idea how to accomplish such a feat, but I recognize the need for it because I'm not seeing 'Look, it's right here! He said it! Right here!' 'You're wrong!' 'No, You're wrong! Look at it!' 'No, You're wrong, stupid!' 'No, You're stupid.' 'No, you're stupid and a loser!' 'No, You're a stupid loser!'
(and other horrible horrible things about jerking off to little [snip} and tongue up someone's [snip], etc.)......
I'm not seeing that this is being effective. But maybe
@muCephi 's idea might be.
