X-Message-Number: 20179
From: "davepizer" <>
Subject: To profit or not to profit - that is a question.
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 19:00:01 -0500

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A little discussion on profit and cryonics.


 "Sabrina Spellman" <> asked:


snip ....................." but does any one know which cryonics company makes a
profit and what non-profit or not for profit or not making a profit or whatever
means."


I may have these two backwards (or sideways) but it is something like this  ( 
BTW I'm not an expert on this - if its important, ask an attorney or tax 
expert):


1.    A non-profit is the most like what we think of as a charity.  It gets a 
special government designation like   501 c-3.   That designation allows people 
to make contributions to it and get to deduct those contributions from their 
income tax (with certain limitations). 


2.    A not-for-profit is not quite the same.  It has similar intentions and 
there are no shareholders in this organization (as in the one above) that get to
take dividends on the profit each year.  But you cannot deduct your 
contributions to this organization from your taxable income.

Alcor presently falls under number 1.  I am not sure where CI stands.  


As to your question about whether any cryonics company makes a profit. I'm not 
sure if you mean "makes a profit" or "tries to profit."


At present CI and Alcor do not try to make the kind of profit that can be 
divided up among shareholders.  


The number one goal of most for-profit companies is to make a profit.  They do 
that by various secondary means like producing a good service or product, or 
being competitive, or being in a good location, or whatever.  Both Alcor and CI 
bypass the profit motive and go straight to trying to produce a good product 
and/or service.


There is another existing cryonics company, ACS, that I believe is also not 
profit oriented.  But they are very small and last I heard they contract with CI
for storage and other services.


There is still another cryonics company in the bay area, called Trans-Time.  
This is the only for-profit cryonics company that I know of.  The players up 
there are Paul Segal and Hal Sternberg, long time cryonicists, and a few others.
But Trans-Time is not very active right now.  TransTime is owned by 
stockholders.  They have plans of reactivating the company in the future.


There have been other cryonics companies that are no longer in existence.  I 
think all of them that went out of business were not profit orientated.


There are also various support cryonics organizations, that do things to support
the movement, but do not freeze and/or store patients.


There is also an Alcor and/or CI cryonics building in the UK.  I have lost track
of who it is associated with now.  I believe its present use might be to do 
cryonics preparations but not for storage.  The only storage I know of is Alcor 
and CI with the exceptions of a few maverick individuals that have a relative 
stored here and there, most from what I have heard, under conditions that will 
make any revival probably impossible.????


When I was at Alcor management years ago, several potential 
cryonics-start-up-company people came to us to see about starting cryonics 
companies.  The ones I remember most wanted to start for-profit companies in 
other countries.  At that time (several years ago) I did not think there was 
enough interest to start a profitable cryonics company.  I have since changed my
mind and I think the time now is good for a for-profit cryonics company to get 
started.  For a couple hundred thousand a year (I'll keep it low to help you get
started), I'll be your advisor.  But after you start raking in the billions, 
I'll want a bigger cut.


I also understand that Saul Kent and Bill Faloon have a company in Florida that 
may be a for-profit company.  I do not fully understand what its function is.

--------------------


Does Alcor or CI make a profit even though they do not give dividends to share 
holders?  This is an interesting question.  In some ways you might want to think
of these companies as profitable in that they are both growing in members, 
patients, amount of cash they control, techniques they use to freeze and store 
people, and continued improved results in the condition of people they recently 
froze under best possible conditions, and in the quality of research they are 
associated with.  Although this is not profit of the kind that one turns into 
cash and divides up among the investors, I would say that all the members of the
currently not-for-profit/non-profit cryonics community are profiting in the 
possible suspensions they will probably receive.


Hope you can find some answers in this little piece.

David Pizer


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