PERPETUTIES

Quite often on CryoNet someone will write in about a subject that hasn’t been mentioned for a while. And sometimes this results in a torrent of responses. This happened recently at: Cryonics_Institute@yahoogroups.com, Except for CI Officers and Board members, initials are used.

Hi Everybody,

I've been a life member of CI for just over a year but I have yet to enter into a suspension contract.

At this point I should also mention that I am an overseas member of CI. I presently reside in Australia but I am planning to move to London later this year. If all goes well, it is also my long term aim to try to retire to live in Michigan, if that proves to be possible in light of US residency restrictions on non-US citizens.

Anyway, at the present time I've started to make some plans that relate to preparing to enter into the suspension contract and I'd appreciate any advice that members of the group might be able to give me on a matter that I'm looking into. Any thoughts at all would be really welcome.

I want to establish a US-based legal perpetuity (most likely a trust will be the form of entity most suited to this) to which I will be able to will most of my assets at the time that I am declared legally dead. The purpose of the entity will be to hold my assets in trust and prudently manage my investments so that, hopefully, when re-animation occurs in the future, I will then have a reasonable financial start to my second lease on life.

After doing some internet research I am aware that some states in the US do permit the establishment of legal perpetuities but I have not got much further than that at this point. I do have an Australian lawyer looking into it and he has told me that it would be very helpful to him if he could be put in touch with a US law firm that has some expertise in this area. Any suggestions?

I'm sure that this issue must have occurred to quite a few members of the group previously and I'm sorry if there is some duplication involved in what I have put forward here.

Thanks for reading my message and, once again, I'd welcome any thoughts.

I'm looking into this, too. In my case, I managed to find the OLDEST law firm in the U.S. as I was looking for stability. It's Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft (www.Cadwalader.com). They were

founded in 1792 and are still in business. I'm not quite ready - financially - to proceed on it yet, but I hope I will be in a few years. They have offices in New York, London, Charlotte, and Washington D.C.

A perpetual trust would not be formed and funded with $100, although the pre-trust (more details later, if I get very

involved) might be. I would expect the minimum requirement would be

around $30,000.

John deRivaz replied:

Well, if each person had to put up $30k, then this would be a big drain on possible bequests to CI and I would be against CI helping to make this happen. It is also totally unnecessary in terms of what is needed.

What I think is a good idea is for many people each to put up $100 into a single trust and the trustees would distribute it in proportion when and if they are reanimated. It may well be that you'd need 300 people interested to make a trust of $30K and that is fine, but I would be surprised if enough appear by next June.

Because the sums involved this side of the dewar are small, no one should get too hot under the collar about issues such as What happens is the individual is not cryopreserved, not reanimated, or the funds end up being used to prop up CI in time of crisis. With 30k these issues would loom large, and rightly so.

Investing in technology (at present unpopular) since 1990 to date the rise is very approximately five times, or 12% per year compound. Obviously if you invest on top of a spike like March 2000 then it will be a long time before such a rise is seen, but the previous spike is not that far from 1990 prices as far as I can recall without looking it up. Cryonics relies on technology, so this investment will seem obvious to those who can experience themselves being reanimated.

$100 at 12% for 100 years is 100 x 1.12^100 = 8 million approx. It sounds a lot, but realistically is probably about $40k by today's standards for essentials.

But it would probably be worth 100 million in terms of things like computers and so on. The latter is a guess really because if you try to work it out based on the cost of a computer in the 1950s and today the number is so large as to be ridiculous. I noticed a VCR for sale for £50 in a mail order magazine today. The best possible machine cost £700 in 1970, but its quality was pathetic compared to the £50 machine today.

If you put $30k into these figures, the result is unnecessarily large. With 30k the loss to CI over the intervening period before reanimations occur could be catastrophic, and instead of hundreds of people with Gates-like fortunes there would just be hundreds of rotted or burned corpses.

Ben Best replied: Actually, John, my work with Brad Grossenberg was exactly what you described -- a template. I was Secretary of CryoCare and the plan was to create a template trust that all CryoCare members could use.At Alcor all of the Patient Funds go into a single pooled trust. At CryoCare the plan was for each member to have their own individual perpetual South Dakota trust -- there would be no pooling of funds. I found a South Dakota bank that would act as trustee and give us a special group rate on trusts -- so it would be very economical for the Members.

I was creating a family of template trusts, actually. There would be irrevocable and revocable pre-mortem trusts and, I believe, insurance trusts. Money from these trusts would flow into the perpetual post-mortem trust at the time of the death of the Member.

It was a great scheme, but CryoCare went down the tubes. I think that the trusts we created could be modified. If there is really a demand for this, I would possibly look at re-animating and modifying this project for the benefit of CI Members. However, I would not be able to pay for this out of my own pocket, as I did when I was with CryoCare.

Ben

"JB" wrote: Ben, I'd like to learn more about it.

Ben Best replied: OK, it appears that you and quite a few others would like to

learn more about it. So I will need to clarify a few points.

A perpetual trust would not be formed and funded with $100, although the pre-trust (more details later, if I get very involved) might be. I would expect the minimum requirement would be around $30,000. The trusts templates I was establishing for CryoCare were intended to provide the full funding of a Member in perpetuity -- allowing each Member to fund as much or as little as they chose above a certain minimum. For CI, if we set up a similar set of South Dakota perpetual trusts, they would have to be above and beyond the minimum funding requirements (ie, Option One $28K, Option Two $35K -- plus shipping and "handling" by a funeral director). CI Members would make CI the beneficiary of their insurance policies for the minimum funding requirements and then could make their personal perpetual trust the beneficiary of the rest of the insurance policy. Or South Dakota living trusts could be set-up which would have real equity which would have as their beneficiary the South Dakota perpetual trusts of the Members. CI would still receive the minimums in the usual way -- outside of the trusts.

I have just spoken to Brad Grossenberg, the South Dakota lawyer who helped create the CryoCare South Dakota perpetual trusts and he says he would be ready, willing and able to do more work on creating perpetual trusts for cryonics purposes.

I would be very pleased to work with Brad Grossenberg to re-work the templates we created five years ago to accommodate the needs and wishes of CI Members. However, your President is very busy and I would not want to begin working on this until at least June and probably later -- although well before the AGM in September

Robert Ettinger has frequently noted the value of being a benefactor to CI in addition to the minimum funding. The more people who are benefactors -- who leave substantial amounts of money to CI through their estate or (better) through an over-funded insurance policy (thereby avoiding probate) stronger CI can become. Money is energy, money is strength. The Also, bequests to CI show a benevolence to your fellow cryonicists -- part of a group of people working together for a common cause.

I would not want to encourage individual perpetual trusts if it is only going to mean a decline in bequests to CI. I would want to help create simple templates and a fiscal/legal structure for South Dakota perpetual trusts if it means more service to our Members, more options and more reason for people to want to be a part of our organization and to support it.

Ben

Why couldn't an investment account be set-up by CI, as a non-profit, to which members could make donations. A record of contributors and the size of their contribution could be kept by CI. Upon reanimation, CI could gift an appropriate sum to the reanimated individual. The pool of funds could be invested and returns reinvested in a technology index fund and managed by the CI board of directors. This should be easy as the only time a decision would have to be made would be if the fund closed down, merged or something else occurred that might necessitate identifying a new fund to which the investment could be moved. I would suggest placing the account with a brokerage firm and investing in an exchange traded fund (ETF) such as the Goldman Sachs Technology Index fund, which trades on the American Stock Exchange just like a stock. Of course, this would be another thing to be watched, i.e., the broker going out of business and CI would have to find a new broker. There is probably some legal issue here that I'm blind to, but I thought I'd throw it out.

Ben Best replied: For the most part, this idea appeals to me a lot. I like the idea of being able to offer services for our Members-- perks of being with CI. This idea would allow Members to contribute as much or as little money as they wish to their reanimation fund (perhaps a $100 minimum). Hopefully the administrative costs would not be too great. Withdrawals from the fund would be prohibited -- permanent contributions only-- just as the contribution of human remains is permanent. If Members can entrust their bodies to CI they should be able to trust money. The money would be invested in a technology ETF -- I would prefer QQQs rather than a fund attached to a single company like Goldman Sachs. There would be no capital gain because there would be no sales before reanimation. There would be no necessity of creating a formal trust if based entirely on "trust" in CI.

There has been considerable interest in this subject. It’ll be continued in the July-August issue.

DEANIMATION

Mr. Mole mentions deanimation and Oregon as sometimes allowing euthanasia. My own plans, probably in the not distant future, are along the following lines.

In Michigan suicide is not illegal, although assisting in a suicide is. Also, in hospice programs the red tape is much reduced. It should only be necessary to persuade the medical examiner, in advance, to have a representative on hand when requested, to pronounce death, after assuring himself that the patient is competent, and waive autopsy. Everything could be set up for the cryonics team to go to work immediately.

To prepare the way, it might be useful to mount a campaign to educate the public not only as to the potential benefits to the patient, but also to the families and public. If the last weeks or months of painful and degrading deterioration can be avoided, suffering by patients and family will be reduced. Then there is the money saved by the taxpayers.

Recently I spent two days in the hospital. That cost the taxpayers almost $14,000. (It also cost me $7.50, seven dollars and fifty cents.) Meanwhile, Medicaid is being cut back. (I don't use Medicaid; I use Medicare and Blue Cross, with VA also available, all paid for by the taxpayers, my Blue Cross being paid by the state of Michigan because I am a retired teacher.) Many voters are likely to believe that this money would be better spent on Medicaid, which is being cut back to save money and effectively denying much medical help to poor people, especially poor young people.

I will never go voluntarily into a nursing home. When it looks like I can no longer take care of myself, it's see you later alligator.  

Most of my projects will have to wait until reanimation, if they are then still relevant. Perhaps the only two projects realistically in the offing now are to finish a version of Youniverse and break ground for voluntary deanimation. I'll probably need some help with the latter.