X-Message-Number: 12
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: more questions and replies
Date: 23 Aug 1988

Roy,
Thanks for your comments and questions.  Here are my replies to the first few
of your questions.  I will reply to the others soon.
                                       - Kevin Q. Brown
                                       ...{att|clyde|cuae2}!ho4cad!kqb
                
>  ... Legal battle is expensive enough to make the military variety
>  seem cheap. ...
At last count, ALCOR had legal bills over $60,000.  They have a good case for
their countersuits, so (in my non-professional opinion) they have a good chance
of eventually getting it back.  Cash flow is one of the major problems right
now and some members are coordinating salary donations for the ALCOR staff.

>  I'd like to know more about your trust arrangements,
> but I'll understand if you want to maintain SOME privacy.
Getting a 10-year term life contract gives me 10 years to get my act together.
My plan is to start arranging the trust after about 6 years.  I am in my second
year now and am currently just saving money (and hopefully making good
investments with it).  After about 6 years, I will take a good look at the tax
laws and find what approach looks best.  At that time I would like to shield

myself from being taxed on the profits from my investments by moving investments
to the trust before selling them (at a profit), but I am not sure that the tax
laws will allow me to do that.  (Does anybody have an answer for that?)
Three things I have in my favor are:
  (1) If I were to cash in all my assets I would already have more than enough
      for ALCOR's neuro option.  But I want to accumulate enough money so that
      paying for suspension is not that financially devastating.  If I keep
      saving at my current rate and keep from losing my assets (to inflation,
      taxes, bad investments, etc.) I should accomplish that.
  (2) At the end of the ten years, I will have already completely paid the
      minimal funding and will still be only 43, which will give me plenty of
      time to accumulate even more wealth above the minimum.
  (3) Other cryonicists want to set up trust arrangements and I can learn from
      them.  In particular, Saul Kent has a model document that may be a good
      approach and he can also recommend some professionals who can set up the
      legal paperwork, etc.  (The Life Against Death conference has a session
      on his model document.)

> ...  over-all, is ALCOR less expensive than American Cryonics Society (ACS)
> and Immortalist Society (IS)?
Whole body from Cryonics Institute (CI) costs $28,000 and no neuro option is
available.  Whole body from ACS/Trans Time costs $125,000 and neuro (which they
do not want to do) is priced at $50,000.  Whole body at ALCOR costs $100,000
and neuro is $35,000.  Other expenses to consider are the yearly emergency
responsibility fees ($100. CI, $180. ACS, $200. ALCOR), fees for initially
signing up ($1250. CI, $1000. ACS, but only $300. ALCOR), and extra deposits
(to cover transportation charges) for people who do not live near the cryonics
facility.  In summary, the costs are all of the same order of magnitude and CI
has the lowest prices.  But what are you getting for your money?  That is where
you will have to look harder at the different organizations.

>       There was no answer at ACS's 800-524-4456 when I called.
I double-checked my sources for ACS's 800 phone number and that number looks
correct.  Sorry to hear you didn't get an answer.

> I recall that there was an article (last December?) in one of the pop-science
> mags about a whole body suspension performed by Trans-Time.  ...
I do not know of any Trans Time suspension done in 1987, but I have listed
below a brief summary of recent suspensions by the various organizations.
More details are available in the cited issues of Cryonics and The Immortalist.

June 8, 1987 (Aug. 1987 Cryonics)
ALCOR, neuro, 29 year old hemophiliac man who got AIDS from a blood transfusion

early November, 1987 (Nov. and Dec. 1987 The Immortalist, Dec. 1987 Cryonics)

Cryonics Institute, whole body, woman.  (No technical or logistic details avail)

Dec. 11, 1987 (Jan., Feb., March, etc. 1988 issues of Cryonics)
ALCOR, neuro, 83 year old woman (the famous Dora Kent case)

March 12, 1988 (April 1988 Cryonics, June 1988 The Immortalist (ACS Journal))
ACS/Trans Time, whole body, woman in mid-eighties

late March 1988 (June and July 1988 The Immortalist)
Cryonics Society of Canada, whole body, man, arctic burial in permafrost
	(average temperature -11 C) near town of Inuvik, which is NOT cold
        enough to preserve memory/personality.

May 8, 1988 (June 1988 Cryonics)
ALCOR, whole body, 72 year old man from Florida

I will post replies to your other questions soon.

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