X-Message-Number: 33180
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 11:04:37 -0500
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>
Subject: Re: Girard estate
References: <>

On 2 Jan 2011 10:00:02 -0000 CryoNet <>
wrote:
> Message #33175
> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 15:38:53 -0700
> Subject: Stephen Girard's trust still exists.
> From: MARK PLUS <>
> 
> The people who view cryonics revival trusts as a money grabbing scam
> might want to explain why the trust set up by early American
> financier and freethinker Stephen Girard still exists after he died
> in 1831, and still provides income for the college he established
> in his will:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Girard
> 

> 
http://www.citytrusts.com/Financial%20Reports/Girard%202010%20FinanciaL%20Statements.pdf

If you had read the second document, you would have learned the
following: the estate of Stephen Girard is administered by
the City of Philadelphia, acting as, it is dryly described, "an
instrumentality of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania". In other words,
this all works because of state action. I presume the trick is that
the manager of the estate is a government entity and that the funds
are disbursed at the pleasure of said entity. It would presumably be
impossible for an ordinary trust to survive for so long, though one
would clearly have to consult an expert in Pennsylvania trusts and
estates law to know the details. There may also be issues of
grandfathering.

The amount of money held is trivial by current standards -- net
assets being around $200k. Given that the individual in question was
one of the wealthiest people in the world at death, the assets,
around the value of an average house, do not reflect canny management
of the funds. One doubts that the money will last much
longer, not that it would be sufficient to support more than a couple
of children at this point.

Perry
--
Perry E. Metzger		

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