Matty;
My calculation indicated fairly strongly that TATF's payouts are not increasing rapidly. Steve Brunner stated that, of last February, TATF had paid out $850k. As of the end of July 2007, Steve Brunner stated that TATF had paid out $750k. This works out to an annualized payout rate of $200k for the last year. If TATF's payouts had been doubling each year, as you suggest, the total payout would be as follows:
2007: $200k
2006: $100k
2005: $ 50k
2004: $ 25k
2003: $12.5k
for a total of $387.5k. But, according to Steve Brunner, their total payout as of last February was $850k, so the payouts haven't been doubling every year.
Looking at it another way, if the payouts had been doubling every year, and the total payouts as of last February were $850k, the payouts over the past several years should have been about:
2007: $440k
2006: $220k
2005: $110k
2004: $ 55k
2003: $ 28k
but the information from Steve Brunner indicated that the payouts in 2007 were only $200k. The available information does not support your speculation that payouts may have been doubling every year.
If we assume a linear increase in payments from 2003 to 2007, and a total payout of $850k, the payments by year look as follows:
2007: $200k
2006: $185k
2005: $170k
2004: $155k
2003: $140k
Without more detailed information, it's not possible to know exactly what the payouts were, but from the limited information Brunner has been willing to provide, it appears that the rate of increase in payouts has been quite slow. If this slow growth rate of payouts continues, it will take a long time (decades, in most cases) for tree owners to receive any distributions from the seven and ten year thinnings of their teak trees.
A1
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