Future Wealth Update

By | January 22, 2006
2 Comments

From the Wall Street Journal (via Kurzweil):

Arizona resort operator David Pizer has made arrangements to have his body frozen in liquid nitrogen after he dies and has also 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.”

Well, as we explored a while back, he may well wake up rich, but not quite as rich as he thinks.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Phil:

    Okay, here’s the example I gave in a comment awhile back:

    “Let’s say you have $2 million socked away in investments that reliably return 10% annually – that’s $200,000.

    Let’s say your effective tax rate (state plus fed) is 50% on that interest income. Your after-tax income would be $100,000 per year.

    Never touching the principal.”

    But you’ve pointed out correctly that you would also need to take into account inflation.

    Inflation has historically been about 3%.

    If inflation holds at that level, you could perpetually take the equivalent of $97,000.00 in today’s dollars every year without touching the principle.

    A person could make it on that. Especially if he was healthy enough to work.

  • AdvancedAtheist

    I appreciate your post for not dismissing this idea out of hand. I’ve seen some especially hostile comments about these cryonicists on free market blogs, calling them “idiots” and “rich suckers,” for example. Ironically in other contexts free-market advocates tend to praise financially successful business people, hold them up as role models and attribute superior judgment to them. I suspect the prospect of having the money to buy your way back from death incites latent envy in some impecunious people.