Wealthy 'Cryonauts' Put Assets on Ice

Carl Bialik writes "'You can't take it with you. So Arizona resort operator David Pizer has a plan to come back and get it,' the Wall Street Journal reports. Pizer is one of about about 1,000 members of the "cryonics" movement who plan to put their bodies on ice soon after death so that in the future, medical advances can save them. A small, wealthy subset of these cryonauts is exploring ways to leave their money to themselves. '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,' the Journal reports. '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.'"

Or....

[suso]

he could wake up in 100 years the richest man in the world

Or he could wake up in 300 years in sick bay with no money at all.

Old joke...

[SiliconEntity]

David Pizer wakes up in the future and calls his accountant to find out how his account is doing. "Good news!" the man says. "Your ten million dollars has grown to almost one billion dollars!" David is ecstatic and they talk a minute more. Suddenly the phone chimes. "Please deposit one hundred million dollars for the next three minutes..."

Re:You read it here first

[Cutriss]

Like Hotblack Desiato?

Meanwhile in Applied Cyrogenics ...

[slashbob22]

"Terry: Welcome to the world of tomorrow!
Lou: Why do you always have to say it that way?
Terry: Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called showmanship? Come, your destiny awaits!"

Futurama Pilot

Don't forget to turn off the light! (Red Dwarf)

[Artega VH]

Reminds me of this little sequence from Red Dwarf:

Holly: They're from the NorWEB Federation.
Lister: What's that?
Holly: NorthWestern Electricity Board. They want you, Dave.
Lister: Me? Why? What for?
Holly: For your crimes against humanity.
Lister: You what?!
Holly: Seems when you left Earth, three million years ago, you left two half-eaten German sausages on a plate in your kitchen.
Lister: Did I?
Holly: You know what happens to sausages left unattended for three million years?
Lister: Yeh, they go mouldy.
Holly: Your sausages, Dave, now cover seven-eighths of the Earth's surface. Also, you left seventeen pounds, fifty pence in your bank account. Thanks to compound interest you now own 98% of all the world's wealth. And because you hoarded it for three million years, nobody's got any money except for you and NorWEB.
Lister: Why NorWEB?
Holly: You left a light on in the bathroom. I've got a final demand here for one hundred and eighty billion pounds.
Lister: A hundred and eighty billion pounds!! You're kidding!
Holly, wearing glasses, nose and moustache: April Fool.
Lister: But it's not April!
Holly: Yeah, I know. But I can't be waiting six months with a red-hot jape like that underneath me hat.

Scary

[tmandry]

You can't take it with you. So Arizona resort operator David Pizer has a plan to come back and get it.

Does anyone else think this sounds like a bad horror movie?

Cryogenics and impotency.

[CyricZ]

My greatest fear would be getting frozen, and then being successfully thawed, except that the freezing process leads to permanent impotency. Frostbite of the cock, one might say.

Then again, I have not sustained, let alone maintained, an erection in a couple of decades. So maybe getting cryogenically frozen wouldn't be that harmful after all.

Re:Comical ethics of advance technology...

[RickPartin]

Thanks for spoiling an obscure movie from the 80's that I've never of and will never watch. Jerk.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this obviously belongs to the "Your rights offline" section.
Editors, relocate!

Mr Pizer, please wake up now...

[rmpotter]

... You've been frozen for 150 years, but your Cryo company went under about 80 years ago. Actually that company has been bought and sold a number of times. You actually spent a few weeks in a meat locker in Chicago until a new facility could be found. Unfortunately we were legally obligated to dip into your "inheritance" to pay for emergency cooling and relocation. You still have a few dollars left, but after converting them into American Yen, it looks like you will have to go back to work. Mr Pizer? Are you listening to me? Ah... yes, where is the rest of your body? Well, you see after the last market crash the Cryo industry was forced to make a few, um, cutbacks. What now? Well, Mr. Pizer, you've lucked into a wonderful Brave New World, you know. You've been assigned to the circus with all the others. You'll be pulled by trained monkeys round the ring on a special cart along with the other heads. It doesn't pay all that well, but it will keep the feeding tube flowing and cover any back taxes owing. And it does make the children laugh! Mr. Pizer? Now don't be angry with me Mr. Pizer...
 

Re:Rule against perpetuities

[Elminst]

Rule against perpetuities??

Then how do you explain the f'ed up Copyright system??

Re:Or....

[TheWanderingHermit]

I was wondering if anyone would even want to waste the time to revive him at all. The world could be too overpopulated, or they could be fed up with cryonauts. Or the economy could have shifted so much he has no current currency.

Or he could wake up in 30 years, travel back in time, start a company to rival his first one, get frozen again, wake up 30 years later (again), marry someone who was a kid when he knew her before, and live happily ever after on the royalties from both his competing companies.

Re:You don't have to be rich.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll freeze you when you are dead for only 150 a year.

Re:Or....

[SmurfButcher Bob]

...or he could wake up in 300 million years, only to discover that Cockroaches do not USE currency.

Reality cheque

[HermanAB]

As Robert Heinlein put it: "If you invest a substantial sum of money at a good interest rate, compounded monthly, it will eventually be worth nothing."

Re:You don't have to be rich.

[RFC959]

will it do you much good to wake up a) broke, and b) without a marketable skill?

So coming out of cryosleep is like graduating with a liberal arts degree, then?

Re:New joke

[magefile]

Them: What's a nigger, pale boy?

Clone of My Own

[uberdave]

Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y-chromosome changed to X
And when it is grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.

(Chorus)
Clone, clone of my own,
With your Y-Chromosome changed to X
And when I'm alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.

Asimov and Garrett [commonplacebook.com]

Tax Em

[Deliveranc3]

You heard me... Tax the icicles.

Re:You don't have to be rich.

[springbox]

Maybe not, but the OP has a point: if and when you wake up, will it do you much good to wake up a) broke, and b) without a marketable skill? You'll be about as useful to the new society as a buggy driver is to ours.

Or maybe, if you wake up you'll be assigned to a position in society based on your capabilities. Haven't you watched Futurama?

There are two things certain...

[xenocide2]

I guess if you plan on skipping out on one of life's certainty's, you may as well plan on skipping the other!

Re:Or....

[yo_tuco]

"He could never wake up, and $10M will sit for eternity accruing interest"

Nah, not too soon in the future, people will start getting e-mails that say something to the effect:


Dear Mr Foobar

I represent the financial estate of a Mr David Pizer. I manage approximately $10M USD of a frozen Mr Pizer and his account. I'm giving you, of all people, an exclusive opportunity to share a 70/30 cut of this large sum of wasted, frozen money. But you must act fast! 419 other people were given this same offer to become rich over night without having to do ANYTHING!

All you have to do...

Please, Mr. Foobar, you must maintain absolute confidentiality to ensure success...

Sincerely,
Mr. Scamee Nigerianez

Don't forget the RIAA

[bobamu]

The Replicator Industry Association Off America will sue them all