Indeed, a further look at that article reveals this to be the case:

I asked Jie Yang, a professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, for his opinions of the bonds.

“I would agree that these bonds are very high risk,” he told me. In addition to their lack of rating and a secondary market, the bonds are callable, meaning Answers in Genesis can collect on the bond at any point before it has matured. (The buyer has no such privilege.) Moreover, the bonds are secured only by the revenues and assets of the Ark Encounter project, not by Answers in Genesis itself.

“Should the project be unsuccessful,” Yang notes, “AiG holds no responsibility in meeting the interest payments of these bonds and the bonds may default.” If the project falls through, in other words, investors won’t just lose their interest payments: They’ll lose their entire investment.

I don't know of anyone with even a basic understanding of economics, who would pay money for bonds of this sort. They're worse than junk bonds, they're in effect one step removed from being a Ponzi scheme.

After this exposition, the article notes the following:

Even if scores of naive congregations pool their money to support the project, Ham’s uncompromisingly grandiose vision seems to be careening toward failure. The ark park is Ham’s Xanadu, an extravagant vanity project born out of boundless narcissism and ambition. And that shouldn’t surprise us one bit. Ham is as much a showman as an evangelist; he preaches a twisted gospel of willful ignorance. He wants us to view the Ark Encounter as a delightful amusement park doubling as a fulfillment of the Gospel. Take a closer look, though, and it’s easy to see the ark park for what it actually is: a wreck.

Calilasseia wrote:Indeed, a further look at that article reveals this to be the case:

I asked Jie Yang, a professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, for his opinions of the bonds.

“I would agree that these bonds are very high risk,” he told me. In addition to their lack of rating and a secondary market, the bonds are callable, meaning Answers in Genesis can collect on the bond at any point before it has matured. (The buyer has no such privilege.) Moreover, the bonds are secured only by the revenues and assets of the Ark Encounter project, not by Answers in Genesis itself.

“Should the project be unsuccessful,” Yang notes, “AiG holds no responsibility in meeting the interest payments of these bonds and the bonds may default.” If the project falls through, in other words, investors won’t just lose their interest payments: They’ll lose their entire investment.

I don't know of anyone with even a basic understanding of economics, who would pay money for bonds of this sort. They're worse than junk bonds, they're in effect one step removed from being a Ponzi scheme.

After this exposition, the article notes the following:

Even if scores of naive congregations pool their money to support the project, Ham’s uncompromisingly grandiose vision seems to be careening toward failure. The ark park is Ham’s Xanadu, an extravagant vanity project born out of boundless narcissism and ambition. And that shouldn’t surprise us one bit. Ham is as much a showman as an evangelist; he preaches a twisted gospel of willful ignorance. He wants us to view the Ark Encounter as a delightful amusement park doubling as a fulfillment of the Gospel. Take a closer look, though, and it’s easy to see the ark park for what it actually is: a wreck.

Somebody has been stealing ideas from The Producers. I did not think Ken Ham was the broadway musical type.

Clearly this project was never meant to succeed.

I have a hard time believing financial regulations are that lax. My guess is they'll have to pay any creditors, and those who bought the bonds would be entitled to whatever may be left after that, but it's not likely to be much, if anything.

Of course, we can always hope for another Kent Hovind-type scam.

Oh it's possible that Ham's had the good sense to pay lawyers to dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's, so that when his Ponzi scheme unravels, he still emerges smelling of roses. He's probably lined up some stooges to push under the bus in advance. If cornered, he'll probably pull some pre-rehearsed apologetic bullshit out of his rectal passage, to the effect that the stooges lined up for the busface operation engaged in "unauthorised" policy decisions, despite the fact that nothing moves in his organisational fiefdom without his direct orders, and certainly nothing involving financial transactions. He'll also pull out some other bullshit to keep the rubes quiet, to the effect that it all went tits up because the operation was sabotaged by those Evil Atheist EvolutionistsTM.

Of course, if push comes to shove, it will take a pretty smart lawyer to corner him, given his talent for constructing "plausible deniability" in advance, but I too look forward to this becoming another Hovind episode.

I would imagine that Ham has spent it on his aborted project and all that will be left is the value of the site and a heap of firewood. Plus maybe part of Ham's salary, if he's saved it and can be held accountable.

Didn't we see a photo of what has been done so far? Wasn't it just a line of stakes in the ground?

Onyx8 wrote:Didn't we see a photo of what has been done so far? Wasn't it just a line of stakes in the ground?

Yes. But often there are advance fees paid to contractors, suppliers, etc. even if no work has actually started.

Just hope Hambo has kept all his receipts....

I'm a little disappointed. I wanted this to be completed. Basically it could have ended one of two ways. Either the Arc fall over in a gentle breeze, or he shoves so much steel in the place that a compass becomes useless for 300 miles.

Either way we get a look at how Noha did it?

They can always put all their fake dinosaurs and humans into the ark and wait for the flood. Or just create a flood what the hell no?

They should have built it in a shipping yard and then tested at sea. That would be a perfect way to test the water worthiness of the specs given to noah by god himself. And because god does not make mistakes, the boat should float.

If the boat does not float, then that would at least prove,

a.god does not know how to build ships.

b.noah does not know how to build ships

c.the specs for the boat were mistranslated into greek resulting in a rectangular shape instead of a round shape.

d.there never was a such a boat built there never was a flood it's yet another tall tale.

They should have just donated the cash to charity or something. What a waste of space and time.

A dutch nutter already did this (little over half the size of the real fiction), and yes it floats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PmNhmsA9Zo

with steel-reinforced wood.

Bert

bert wrote:A dutch nutter already did this (little over half the size of the real fiction), and yes it floats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PmNhmsA9Zo

with steel-reinforced wood.

Bert

He was going to sail it over to England and moor it on the Thames during the Olympics. Unfortunately, it was declared unseaworthy.

Saved by a Nye I presume....

Ham will build it eventually. He still has 500+ years to do it, given that Noah wasn't a spring chicken when he picked up the hammer.

Funny how they cheat when they're trying to show their nonsense story is true, Noah's floating zoo didn't need steal.

I would suppose this would have one mean aircon system installed if they have a mass of punters inside. I remember distinctly an experience I had in Australia when very young. I can't remember where exactly [we were visiting Brisbane] but it was this big fucking pineapple you could walk inside and up a stairwell. It was summer there and what I remember was 'this is so fucking hot in here why are we doing this?'

Ah, Queensland, the home of "Big" things. Such as the Big Pineapple. For those unfamiliar with these, more here. Though it appears that the fetish for these artefacts has spread right across Australia.

In short, they're either oversized statues, or buildings shaped like various weird and wonderful objects. Many have an advertising or other commercial connection, and were erected as a means of pulling in tourists. One of the more ironic constructions of this sort is the Big Ayers Rock, forming the roof of a restaurant, which is actually much smaller than the real Ayers Rock on which it is modelled, but usually, the artefacts are giant-scale versions of more familiar objects such as bananas, cows, and even bull ants.

Bit old, Ky. rejects $18M in tax incentives for Noah's Ark park

So yeah Kentucky says no to giving tax break for creating 900 new jobs for members of Ken Hams church.

Calilasseia wrote:Ah, Queensland, the home of "Big" things. Such as the Big Pineapple. For those unfamiliar with these, more here. Though it appears that the fetish for these artefacts has spread right across Australia.

In short, they're either oversized statues, or buildings shaped like various weird and wonderful objects. Many have an advertising or other commercial connection, and were erected as a means of pulling in tourists. One of the more ironic constructions of this sort is the Big Ayers Rock, forming the roof of a restaurant, which is actually much smaller than the real Ayers Rock on which it is modelled, but usually, the artefacts are giant-scale versions of more familiar objects such as bananas, cows, and even bull ants.

That's Queensland.

To think I actually thought of retiring there

lucek wrote:Bit old, Ky. rejects $18M in tax incentives for Noah's Ark park

So yeah Kentucky says no to giving tax break for creating 900 new jobs for members of Ken Hams church.

From that article, this schmuck said:

"If you insist on the newly imposed condition ... it will amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and my client will have no choice but to seek redress in federal court," Parsons wrote.

What a moron. Freedom of religion is the right to choose your religion, not a right to act on it with no regard for other people or secular laws. Of course Parsons is a lawyer so it's his job to make up phony legal criteria for his deluded clients.