Money now vs. Money Later

[criley]

Hi,
In many cases a corporation can have buy-sell agreements, but there may be limits to them for only S Corps (or LLCs?) and those have limited numbers of owners, perhaps under 500 if I remember correctly from law school. Then there is this issue of valuation. The other problem with any of that is that it opens up other chances for litigation from heirs and that is always a bad thing.

This is a good discussion, btw.

Chris

I don't know if a corporation could have a stockholder agreement that says that repurchased stock would be held and then sold back at a good price to a reanimated member.

[paulwakfer]

It's harder to get people to donate to a for-profit. Not just financial donors, but workers who work for below-market wages. While I could see people making bequests to a for-profit, they are more likely to do it to a non-profit and a lot of Alcor's money has come from bequests, and there is more to come that way.

With a for-profit org there would be no need for donations at all. All those desiring to support the organization would purchase shares.

With member/stockholders, the problem is that you can't own stock after you die -- your hiers do. --- You can't, in most countries, take it with you. I don't know if a corporation could have a stockholder agreement that says that repurchased stock would be held and then sold back at a good price to a reanimated member.

This problem is solved by the use of a Patient Advocate (a perpetual organization which assumes ownership and ultimate jurisdiction over the disposition of a legally deceased member for the purpose of optimally enabling his/her return to fully functional life - think of it as a few of the member's trusted cryonicist friends, who agree to do this - and are paid a small yearly fee - and who agree to find others to carry on after they are also cryopreserved - likely those who will form their Patient Advocate). The Patient Advocate would inherit and own the shares - and most of the member's assets beyond the cryopreservation minimum - to be applied as and when necessary for the benefit of the member, and to be returned to the member upon his/her restoration.

But it is market principles that lead me to not want any of us to pay now for services in the future. That's because I want it to be easy to switch cryonics org. I think that when the customers can switch, we get a better cyronics org because it has to respond to competitive pressure. If I pay for half my cryonics cost thorugh fees I can't get back (as is the case now) this penalizes switching.

I totally agree. One purpose of the Patient Advocate is so that an already cryopreserved cryonicist can also be switched if necessary.

[criley]

This sounds very similar to the concept of "trust protector" for trusts in jurisdictions that have eliminated the rule against perpetuities (or significantly extended it).

It is a good concept.

I totally agree. One purpose of the Patient Advocate is so that an already cryopreserved cryonicist can also be switched if necessary.

[Merkle]

It's proposed that somebody $30K "underfunded" would now be paying $1,100 per year in fees,

A member who signed up a few years ago, selected the neuro option, and provided the minimum funding of $50,000 at the time of signup and did not subsequently increase their funding would now be underfunded by $30,000 because the neuro minimum has increased to $80,000. The 1% underfunding fee would be $30,000 x 0.01 or $300. This is an annual fee, so the monthly cost would be $25.

[southbay]

Yes, Ralph, that's what I wrote. $300/year in underfunding contribution, plus the other $800 in fees makes $1,100 in annual fees. Over triple the fee from the 90s of $360/year. (Somebody from the 90s would be even more underfunded, actually.) And the $300 underfunding fee is not, as I understand it, applied to reducing your underfunding, but rather is there to handle underfunding losses for all the underfunded. Even if you should live long enough so that your underfunding fees exceed your underfunding, which is 33 years at a 6% interest rate, a duration that many members should expect to exceed.

Somebody should confirm if that's the plan -- that after paying 1% of my underfunding for 33 years, enough to fully pay the underfunding, I would still be considered just as much underfunded, in fact probably more underfunded because the price would have risen?

On to stock questions: While you can try to establish a trust to manage things after you die, there's a big difference with bequests. Today Alcor has received several large bequests. The suggestion is that the party who would consider doing that would instead create a trust, and bequest the money to it, and instruct the trust to buy stock in Alcor with it. While that could work I could see a lot more potential for other heirs to challenge that, where it's harder to challenge a plain old bequest to a non-profit for research. It looks a lot more like trying to take it with you via a perpetual trust.

[paulwakfer]

Hi Southbay,

Glad you caught that. I was about to post that Ralph quoted you out of context and missed your meaning.
BTW, I appreciate your insightful comments, but it would be nice to have a real name to award them to. I would like to see people more open with their identities on this forum.

Yes, Ralph, that's what I wrote. $300/year in underfunding contribution, plus the other $800 in fees makes $1,100 in annual fees. Over triple the fee from the 90s of $360/year. (Somebody from the 90s would be even more underfunded, actually.) And the $300 underfunding fee is not, as I understand it, applied to reducing your underfunding, but rather is there to handle underfunding losses for all the underfunded. Even if you should live long enough so that your underfunding fees exceed your underfunding, which is 33 years at a 6% interest rate, a duration that many members should expect to exceed.

Somebody should confirm if that's the plan -- that after paying 1% of my underfunding for 33 years, enough to fully pay the underfunding, I would still be considered just as much underfunded, in fact probably more underfunded because the price would have risen?

Since the fee is not invested but merely used up to add to the funding of underfunded cryopreservations as they take place and Alcor only counts on 2% interest on their investments (hardly enough to maintain the real value - which is a major reason why they now appear to no longer accept paid up cryopreservations), the answer to your question is definitely yes: the extra yearly fees required from underfunded members have no effect on the reduction of the underfunded amount no matter how many years paid.

On to stock questions: While you can try to establish a trust to manage things after you die, there's a big difference with bequests. Today Alcor has received several large bequests. The suggestion is that the party who would consider doing that would instead create a trust, and bequest the money to it, and instruct the trust to buy stock in Alcor with it. While that could work I could see a lot more potential for other heirs to challenge that, where it's harder to challenge a plain old bequest to a non-profit for research. It looks a lot more like trying to take it with you via a perpetual trust.

You may be right here, but I don't see why that would be the case if the will is clearly made out with some token amount to family heirs and bulk of it to the Patient Advocate as an organization (which does not need to be and probably should not legally be a trust). (The Patient Advocate idea does indeed require that the patient have total trust in its members - which is why they need to be both good friends of the patient and each other, as well as all be cryonicists.) The contract of how the Patient Advocate should handle that bequest is quite separate and the idea of investing some in the cryonics org was only a possibility if that org were to be a for-profit. In any case, my method in general is (similar to green-light thinking) to always first attempt to determine the optimal methods of action before then examining how government regulations might affect those methods.

[Merkle]

Yes, Ralph, that's what I wrote. $300/year in underfunding contribution, plus the other $800 in fees makes $1,100 in annual fees.

Sorry. I didn't see where you'd gotten the $1,100 number from, I just saw that it was much too high for the underfunding fee.