X-Message-Number: 13951
From: 
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 11:49:07 EDT
Subject: finances etc

In recent Cryonet posts, there have been questions/comments about comparative 
financial strength and size of organizations, as well as the question of 
funding for revival and rehabilitation of patients. Briefly:

1. The only information I have about Alcor finances dates from July 1998, 
showing its Patient Care Trust with liquid assets of $650,000; an interest in 
Alcor's building, book value $185,000; and ownership of the mortgage on the 
building, worth $495,000, for a total of $1.33 million. No doubt this has 
grown, and Alcor has other assets, but I don't have those figures, and don't 
find them in any recent issues of Alcor's publications or on Alcor's web 
site. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

As for Cryonics Institute, as of the end of our last fiscal year, March 31, 
2000, our total and net assets came to over $2 million, of which roughly 
$320,000 was property and equipment (depreciated), the rest liquid 
investments. We have no debt.

As for the American Cryonics Society, it is set up differently, with separate 
trusts for the maintenance of individual patients, as was the case with 
CryoCare.

2. Alcor's membership is very roughly twice that of CI, but in the last 
couple of years CI's growth has been faster than Alcor's, and CI's patient 
number has also grown faster. Previously, Alcor had gotten almost all the 
publicity, and few had heard of CI or ACS, and didn't know how to find us 
even if they had heard of us. Since the blooming of the Internet that has 
changed considerably, and continues to change.

3. Fred Chamberlain recently said that Alcor (like other organizations) has 
no funds earmarked for revival/rehabilitation of patients and no way of 
estimating that cost. That is not quite correct.

When a patient is revived, there will be no further need for funding to keep 
him maintained in liquid nitrogen. Hence that money will be freed up for 
other uses, such as to help defray the cost of revival/rehabilitation. If 
that amount is initially insufficient, and no other funds are available, then 
we would just have to wait until the cost comes down or/and the invested 
funds grow enough.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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