Legacy MattersWhat Ted Williams and Walt Disney have in common is the belief that they can be revived years after death when medicine has advanced sufficiently to cure whatever caused their deaths.
There are some 1000 people in the cryonics movement who have arranged to have their bodies frozen in liquid nitrogen until the time is right to thaw them out. Some 142 human bodies or heads are already so frozen.
I always thought it was nuts myself, but never more so than when I read in the Wall Street Journal that they are leaving their money to themselves! A Cold Calculus Leads Cryonauts to Put Assets on Ice.
With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has created legal arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his roughly $10 million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen, he could wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world."
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At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign businessmen are testing unfamiliar legal territory by creating so-called personal revival trusts designed to allow them to reclaim their riches hundreds, or even thousands, of years into the future.
Such financial arrangements, which tie up money that might otherwise go to heirs or charities, are "more widespread than I originally thought," says A. Christopher Sega, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and a trusts and estates attorney at Venable LLP, in Washington. Mr. Sega says he's created three revival trusts in the last year.
On Personal Revival Trusts
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, leaving money to yourself is nothing but nuts.
Posted by Jill Fallon at January 24, 2006 4:37 AM | Permalink