Knee, Hip, Kidney and Lung Transplants - Next: Heads

Plus, Ric helps a listener find the right person to manage her trust

Ric Edelman: It's Tuesday, October 1st. Did your head explode yesterday when I talked about all the cool gear that's going to be coming soon to your bathroom? Well, if you missed that podcast, the link to it's in the show notes. And if you heard it and your head exploded, you need a new head.

Now you can get one. A biomedical engineering company is working on efforts to let doctors do head transplants. The company is integrating robotics and AI to execute complete head and face transplantation procedures. Their goal is to offer hope to patients who are suffering from untreatable conditions like Stage 4 Cancer, paralysis, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Their goal is to transplant a patient's head onto a brain-dead donor body that's otherwise healthy, giving you a new body, but letting you preserve your consciousness, memories, and cognitive abilities. High speed robotic systems would prevent brain cell degradation and ensure seamless compatibility between the transplanted head and the donor body.

Real-time molecular level imaging and advanced algorithms would guide the precise reconnection of the spinal cord, nerves, and blood vessels. Autonomous surgical robots would perform simultaneous surgeries on two bodies at once using a proprietary chemical adhesive that would reconnect severed neurons and a specialized implant in the epidural space behind the spine to promote neuron repair, letting your brain form neural connections with your new body.  They say this first surgery could be within eight years.

Now, maybe your head really is exploding. Well, okay, try this. A new study says a low dose of psychedelics given to rats boosted their outlook on life. Based on the rat's behavior, ketamine and the hallucinogen, scopolamine, shifted the rodent's emotional state to neutral. Psilocybin turned the emotional state of the rats positive, and the improvements came in just one day and persisted long after the drugs wore off. They say that human tests haven't started yet, but come on, humans have been using these drugs for a really long time.

And if the idea of surgery scares you, there's a study from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School that did away with surgery. They used focused ultrasound and 3D printing to repair a pig's damaged tissue. In one test, the team injected a goo into the body, ultrasound easily penetrated layers of skin and tissue, and it directed a 3D printer to make shapes of that goo into bones and kidneys. Brain implants are now helping people walk.

That could be the link between human and artificial intelligence. Brain computer interfaces bypass neural impediments that prevent people from speaking or moving their limbs. There are 160,000 patients who have received deep brain stimulation. These new neural implants allow for two-way communication between the brain and the device. So far, 50 patients worldwide have received these implants. Yeah, there's a lot of head blowing up going on on today's podcast because of these amazing new innovations that are here, or soon coming.

Hey, I got a question from Kia, and she asked the following.   

“I need someone to be trustee of my new trust. My son lives in Europe, so I don't want to bother him with this. How do you feel about a corporate trustee? A company like First State Trust Company?”

Ric Edelman: Yes, Kia, your dilemma is a very common one. When we create our estate plan, and we are trying to decide how to leave our assets to our surviving spouse, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, even charities, the issue is that you simply have to name somebody to handle all this for you because you're not going to be around to handle it yourself.

You also want to choose someone to handle this if you are around, but you're not able to manage the affairs yourself, either because you're in Europe traveling on vacation or because you have some mental or physical issue that's preventing you from being able to handle this, such as you developing Alzheimer's or you get really sick and you're in a hospital.

So very commonly, people turn to a family member to serve as the executor of their will or the trustee of their trust. But in very many cases, people don't have someone that they can turn to, or they don't trust the members of their family to manage their affairs and assets appropriately, or they're trying to avoid the burden of asking a family member to handle this chore because it can be a thankless, time-consuming pain.

So, this is why people often turn to professional trustees. And there are a wide variety of companies that provide these kinds of trust services. Virtually every bank does this. They all have trust departments, and there are lots of law firms that will provide this service as well. And there are trust companies that frankly, this is all they do.

This is their key service. You mentioned one. So, you can certainly turn to a corporate trustee. If you're going to do that, be aware of two facts. Number one, that trustee is going to charge fees, typically 1.5% of the assets on an annual basis. This can add up to a lot of money over time.

You would avoid those fees if you were to select a family member or frankly you might even prefer to let that fee go to the family member and keep it within the family rather than to a third-party corporate trustee.

More importantly, corporate trustees are run by corporations. The people they hire are salaried employees and none of them are going to have any emotional attachment. Many would argue that's the good news. You don't have to worry about bias. But the bad news is, that corporate trustee is gonna quit. He's gonna go get a new job, or she's gonna go retire, or who knows what.

So, there's gonna be turnover of staff. And you may discover that the trust company itself goes out of business or the trust company gets involved in M&A (mergers and acquisitions) and it is sold to another enterprise. You might not like the new company that takes over or the new personnel that they've recruited to handle your trust.

So, what that means in the end is simply this: Make sure your heirs, the beneficiaries of your trust, have the ability to fire the corporate trustee. And replace them with a new, different corporate trustee. Too often, I have seen estate planning documents where the individual chooses a corporate trustee and doesn't provide any mechanism for firing that trustee, which means now the trustee can do whatever the heck they want.

They can do a very bad job. They can be unresponsive. They can, even violate the trust rules, and there's no way to get rid of them short of perhaps going to court, which is draconian, expensive, time consuming, and frankly, not very optimistic in its outcome. So, make sure you give the heirs the opportunity somehow to fire the corporate trustee and select a different one. This will help make sure that the trustee stays on their toes and does a good job knowing that they don't have a job for life.

You can send me your question as well. Just send it to askric@thetruthayf.com. The link is in the show notes.

I mentioned that we've got a webinar coming up next Wednesday, October 9th, 1 PM Eastern. If you are interested in crypto and the new investment opportunities associated, did you know that you can earn yield from crypto? Did you know that you can borrow money? Posting your crypto as collateral. Did you know that you can make loans to people who want to engage in the crypto marketplace? How do you handle custody for the crypto you own?

I'm going to be joined by Bill Barhydt, the founder & CEO of Abra, who is going to talk with us about all of this. Yield staking, lending custody.

It's going to be a fascinating conversation. You don't want to miss it. If you're an advisor, you get one CE credit. The webinar is free register. Use the link in the show notes. It's next Wednesday at 1:00pm EDT. See you there.

I'm glad you're with me here on The Truth About Your Future. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to follow and subscribe to the show, wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and remember to leave a review on Apple podcasts. I read them all. Never miss an episode of The Truth About Your Future. Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

I'll see you tomorrow.

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Links from today’s show: 

10/9 Webinar - Crypto for RIAs: Yield, Staking, Lending and Custody. What’s beyond the ETFs?  https://dacfp.com/events/crypto-for-rias-yield-staking-lending-and-custody-whats-beyond-the-etfs/

10/23 Webinar - How to Factor Longevity into Your Financial Planning: https://www.thetayf.com/pages/october-2024-webinar-how-to-factor-longevity-into-your-financial-planning

9/25 Webinar Replay - Unlocking Alpha in Crypto-Equities and Beyond: https://dacfp.com/events/unlocking-alpha-in-crypto-equities-and-beyond

9/20 Webinar Replay - Q4 Crypto Outlook: What You Need to Know Now: https://dacfp.com/events/q4-crypto-outlook-what-you-need-to-know-now

9/11 Webinar Replay – Rates are Poised to Drop, Now What?: https://www.thetayf.com/pages/rates-poised-to-drop-now-what

Become Certified in Blockchain and Digital Assets: https://dacfp.com/certification/

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Invesco QQQ: https://www.invesco.com/qqq-etf/en/home.html

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