Socialism: price the savings insurance pool from Census closure rates by firm age, write out the formula that cuts limits when the reserve falls behind, and say what a young pool would pay in a bad recession

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx

JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/open-problems.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ An honest list of what the model hasn't solved yet, most dangerous first.
 
 2. **The horizon problem.** *(Mostly answered.)* Members near retirement have little reason to vote for investments whose payoff arrives after they leave. The evidence from France and Italy finds no underinvestment where co-ops must keep a reserve, and [Investing for the Long Run](the-long-run.md) closes the main routes around this model's reserve: pay above the going rate, sales of assets, development spending, high pay that turns into losses, and worn-out equipment still in use. A warning light shows when a co-op stops replacing its equipment, and big bets get an independent opinion before members vote. Still open: nothing forces a co-op to maintain what it has, a bad bet that fails after its backers leave falls on the people who came after, and it's unsettled whether 30% is enough and whether the account rate is right. Members' accounts now pay back within three to seven years ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#why-not-pay-it-out-when-you-leave)), so they help less with long-lived investments than accounts held until members leave. Letting members sell their places to incoming workers was rejected, because that is how the plywood co-ops ended up sold.
 
-3. **Members' savings sit inside their employer.** *(Partly answered.)* [Member capital accounts](capital-accounts.md) are capped at a year's pay, protected by a solvency test, and now insured by a pool the co-ops pay for ([Protecting Members' Savings](savings-guarantee.md)). It covers final wages, former members' payouts and a protected slice of current accounts. Premiums are now estimated from Europe's wage guarantee funds and US closure and default rates: at least 0.25% of payroll for final wages, and probably 2% to 3% a year of covered savings, which takes nearly all the interest on a protected slice. The reserve target is sized for a five-year wave of failures like 2008–2012, and cover for current members' savings waits until the pool has its own track record. Still open: the pool has no government backing, so a worse recession could outrun it; the estimates rest on rough data, not co-ops; the reserve takes about fifteen years to build; and it needs a federal charter to avoid fifty states' insurance laws. Also open: an account paid out when a member leaves would probably be a pension plan under federal law, which would forbid the co-op from using the money. So accounts now pay each year's credit back on a fixed schedule of three to seven years, whether or not the member has left. That's designed to stay outside pension law, but it isn't settled until the Labor Department answers, and federal appeals courts weigh programs like it differently. Because nobody loses their account for leaving, much of what's paid goes to people who've left, which weakens the case. So co-ops where more than a third of payouts go to people no longer working there shorten the wait, then stop making new credits, and credits taxed only when paid wait for the Department ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#why-not-pay-it-out-when-you-leave)). In high-turnover work, that almost always means no accounts, so the lowest-paid members lose the savings the model promises them. An ordinary retirement plan outside the business, with the co-op adding 3% of wages for everyone and, from 2027, a federal match for low earners, makes up part of that ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#saving-for-retirement)). It gives up the trust, disclosure and fiduciary rules that pension law would bring, which the model only partly replaces, and it leaves the co-op less of its members' money to invest for the long run. State wage laws are a second risk: in some states, California likely among them, a credit in a member's account could count as wages, which can't be held back, charged with losses or paused. Co-ops in those states don't use accounts until the state changes its law ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md#is-the-profit-share-pay)), so members there build no savings in the co-op. A third: account credits look like the notes the Supreme Court has held to be securities, so the model keeps members from putting money in and asks the SEC for an answer ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#are-accounts-securities)). If the answer is no, the nearest exemption means calling credits pay, which works against the model's positions on tax, pension and wage law.
+3. **Members' savings sit inside their employer.** *(Partly answered.)* [Member capital accounts](capital-accounts.md) are capped at a year's pay, protected by a solvency test, and now insured by a pool the co-ops pay for ([Protecting Members' Savings](savings-guarantee.md)). It covers final wages, former members' payouts and a protected slice of current accounts. Premiums are now estimated from Europe's wage guarantee funds and Census closure rates for small firms like co-ops: at least 0.25% of payroll for final wages, and 3% to 6.5% a year of covered savings depending on the co-op's age, which takes most or all of the interest on a protected slice. The wage rate assumes a failed co-op owes about two of the eight weeks, which nobody has measured. The reserve target is six extra years' worth of claims while the pool is young, and limits for new additions fall when the reserve falls behind its planned path. If a recession hit in the pilot's fifth year, the pool would pay roughly 45 to 60 cents on the dollar of savings claims, so in its early years it's a partial promise, and cover for current members' savings waits until the pool has its own track record. Still open: the pool has no government backing, so a worse recession could outrun it; the estimates rest on rough data, not co-ops; the reserve takes about fifteen years to build; and it needs a federal charter to avoid fifty states' insurance laws. Also open: an account paid out when a member leaves would probably be a pension plan under federal law, which would forbid the co-op from using the money. So accounts now pay each year's credit back on a fixed schedule of three to seven years, whether or not the member has left. That's designed to stay outside pension law, but it isn't settled until the Labor Department answers, and federal appeals courts weigh programs like it differently. Because nobody loses their account for leaving, much of what's paid goes to people who've left, which weakens the case. So co-ops where more than a third of payouts go to people no longer working there shorten the wait, then stop making new credits, and credits taxed only when paid wait for the Department ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#why-not-pay-it-out-when-you-leave)). In high-turnover work, that almost always means no accounts, so the lowest-paid members lose the savings the model promises them. An ordinary retirement plan outside the business, with the co-op adding 3% of wages for everyone and, from 2027, a federal match for low earners, makes up part of that ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#saving-for-retirement)). It gives up the trust, disclosure and fiduciary rules that pension law would bring, which the model only partly replaces, and it leaves the co-op less of its members' money to invest for the long run. State wage laws are a second risk: in some states, California likely among them, a credit in a member's account could count as wages, which can't be held back, charged with losses or paused. Co-ops in those states don't use accounts until the state changes its law ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md#is-the-profit-share-pay)), so members there build no savings in the co-op. A third: account credits look like the notes the Supreme Court has held to be securities, so the model keeps members from putting money in and asks the SEC for an answer ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#are-accounts-securities)). If the answer is no, the nearest exemption means calling credits pay, which works against the model's positions on tax, pension and wage law.
 
 4. **Is the lock too rigid?** A co-op that should be sold (a better operator exists, the members want out) can only go to another co-op. If the co-op sector is small, that buyer pool is tiny, and viable firms may be liquidated instead of rescued. The federation as buyer of last resort is a partial answer. Critics on the right add a sharper version: a lock that outlasts a repaid loan by generations is a permanent restriction on selling property, bought with one loan, and it binds members who never agreed to it. The lock is now built to hold in layers, including an independent lock share and rules against selling the business piece by piece ([The Lock](the-lock.md#how-the-lock-is-made-to-hold)). Its biggest legal gap is bankruptcy: federal bankruptcy law generally overrides limits on selling a bankrupt company's property, so the lock only holds in bankruptcy if Congress amends that law. [When a Locked Co-op Goes Bankrupt](bankruptcy.md) drafts that amendment. It's modeled on how bankruptcy law already treats charities. Only co-ops can buy a failed co-op whole, its workers can keep it running and bid with the wages they're owed, and creditors who never chose to lend are paid the lock's cost from the federation fund, which the co-op that buys the business repays. Whoever carries on the business, including members who keep it through a reorganization, takes on injuries from the old co-op's products, its warranties and household customers' deposits. When members keep a co-op over creditors' objections, the value faces a market test, though a weak one, since a conventional offeror can never win. That cost is usually nothing but can be large, and nobody has measured how often. The bank lends toward a workers' bid only up to what the assets would bring sold off piece by piece, so the rest has to come from the workers' claims, the insurance pool or patient money from the federation, and a failed firm often won't find it. It still needs Congress, a later Congress can repeal it, and while the co-op sector is small, some viable businesses will be broken up for lack of a co-op buyer. Italy offers a softer model: a co-op there can convert into an ordinary company, but its accumulated reserves go to the co-op development fund, not to the members ([Has This Been Tried?](precedents.md#italys-co-op-funds-coopfond-and-the-marcora-law)). That would keep the part of the lock that stops members cashing out what earlier generations built, and drop the part that stops a firm from ever changing hands.
 

JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/savings-guarantee.md

@@ -60,17 +60,27 @@ Nobody has priced insurance quite like this, but the pieces can be estimated fro
 - **Germany** pays up to three months of unpaid wages when an employer goes insolvent. Employers paid 0.06% of payroll in 2023 and 2024, and pay 0.15% in 2025 and 2026. After the financial crisis the rate jumped to 0.41% in 2010 ([lohn-info.de](https://www.lohn-info.de/insolvenzgeldumlage.html); [Haufe](https://www.haufe.de/id/beitrag/insolvenzgeldumlage-fuer-2026-HI17106952.html)).
 - **France** covers wages and other amounts owed to workers, including severance, up to a ceiling. Employers pay 0.25% of each worker's pay, up to about €16,000 a month, in 2026 ([Service Public](https://entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr/actualites/A17906)). In 2009 the rate rose from 0.10% to 0.20%, 0.30% and then 0.40% within a single year ([Eurojuris](https://www.eurojuris.fr/articles/augmentation-du-taux-de-cotisation-ags-au-1er-octobre-2009-10360.htm)).
 
-Both are run or required by the state and spread across every employer in the country, so their rates are a floor, not a benchmark. This pool covers less, eight weeks of wages, but it covers young, small firms in a few industries, with nothing behind it. So it starts at 0.25% of payroll, plus a charge to build its reserve, and the actuary adjusts from there.
+Both are run or required by the state and spread across every employer in the country, so their rates are a floor, not a benchmark. This pool covers less, eight weeks of wages, but it covers young, small firms in a few industries, with nothing behind it. So it starts at 0.25% of payroll, plus a charge to build its reserve, and the actuary adjusts from there. That rate quietly assumes that a co-op that fails owes its workers, on average, about two of the eight weeks, since most businesses keep paying wages until they close. Nobody has measured that for small US firms. If a failed co-op owed all eight weeks, the premium would need to be about 0.9% of payroll. The pool records it for every failure.
 
-**Members' savings: probably 2% to 3% of covered amounts a year, and possibly much more.** When a co-op fails, members' accounts and unpaid payouts rank behind its lenders, so the pool should expect to pay almost the whole covered amount. What matters is how often covered co-ops fail owing more than they have. Three rough numbers bracket it:
+**Members' savings: about 3% to 6.5% of covered amounts a year, depending on the co-op's age.** When a co-op fails, members' accounts and unpaid payouts rank behind its lenders, so the pool should expect to pay almost the whole covered amount. What matters is how often covered co-ops fail owing more than they have. Three rough numbers bracket it:
 
-- **Closures.** Of US business locations opened in 2013, about 61% were still open after three years, when account cover starts. After that, roughly 7% to 10% closed each year ([Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt)). Those are locations, not firms, so some are branches of businesses that carried on.
+- **Closures of firms like these.** The Census Bureau counts every US employer that closes all its locations, each year, by the firm's age and size ([Business Dynamics Statistics, firm age by size, 1978–2023](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds/tables/time-series/2023/bds2023_fa_fz.csv)). Selling or merging doesn't count as closing. Among firms with roughly 10 to 200 workers, the share that closed each year, averaged over 1990 to 2023, falls with age:
-- **Not every closure is a failure.** In Census Bureau data, about a third of owners of closed businesses said the business was successful when it closed ([Headd, Census Bureau, 2001](https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/01-01.html)). That suggests something like 5% a year close unsuccessfully. But many "successful" closures were owners retiring or selling, which a locked co-op can't do, so for co-ops the real figure could be higher.
+
+  | Firm age | Closed each year |
+  | --- | --- |
+  | 3 | 8.0% |
+  | 4 | 7.0% |
+  | 5 | 6.4% |
+  | 6 to 10 | 4.9% |
+  | 11 to 15 | 3.7% |
+
+  The Bureau sorts firms by their average workforce over two years, so a firm that closes is filed at half its size. These figures count closures filed at 5 to 99 workers against firms filed at 10 to 99. Counting only closures filed at 10 to 99 would give less than half as much, which is too low. Many of the closures filed at 5 to 9 are firms that had already been shrinking, so the figures lean a little high for a healthy co-op. Figures for business locations rather than firms tell a similar story: of those opened in 2013, about 61% were still open after three years, when account cover starts, and roughly 7% to 10% closed each year after that ([Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt)).
+- **Not every closure is a failure.** In Census Bureau data, about a third of owners of closed businesses said the business was successful when it closed ([Headd, Census Bureau, 2001](https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/01-01.html)). But many "successful" closures were owners retiring or selling, which a locked co-op can't do, and members, ranking last, can lose their savings even when the lenders are paid. So the pool counts 80% of closures as claims, not two-thirds, until its own data says otherwise.
 - **Loan defaults.** Among the SBA's mature loan groups, loans making up 6% to 10% of the money lent eventually defaulted ([GAO-20-618](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-618)). Spread over the life of the loans, that's roughly 1% a year. That's close to a floor: members can lose their savings in failures where the lender still gets paid.
 
-Worker co-ops may do better. The best study found them about 29% less likely to close, in Uruguay ([Burdín, 2014](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979391406700108)). But the pool shouldn't count on that until its own data shows it. So it starts at 2% to 3%: a strong co-op, with a large reserve and little debt, nearer the bottom, a weak one higher. These are starting guesses from rough data, and the pool publishes every year how its actual losses compare.
+Worker co-ops may do better. The best study found them about 29% less likely to close, in Uruguay ([Burdín, 2014](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979391406700108)). But the pool shouldn't count on that until its own data shows it. So it starts at 80% of the closure rate for the co-op's age: about 5% to 6.5% a year at ages three to five, when account cover starts, about 4% at six to ten, and about 3% after that. Within each age, a strong co-op, with a large reserve and little debt, pays less, a weak one more. These are starting guesses from rough data, and the pool publishes every year how its actual losses compare.
 
-**That's expensive.** The protected slice of a current member's account earns only the plain Treasury rate. With the charge to build the reserve, the premium takes nearly all of that interest.
+**That's expensive.** The protected slice of a current member's account earns only the plain Treasury rate. The premium takes most of that interest at a mature co-op, and more than all of it at a young one. That's why current members' cover comes last, is optional, and is priced on the assumption that the co-ops most likely to choose it are the weaker ones. It may never be worth offering.
 
 ## Starting small
 
@@ -78,30 +88,41 @@ A few hundred co-ops, all started in the same few years, can't spread this risk
 
 - **From the start: final wages and former members' payouts,** for every covered co-op. These protect people with no say in how the co-op is run, and final wages are the biggest loss for low-paid workers.
 - **Current members' slices come later,** once the pool has seen about 1,000 years of co-op experience (say, 200 co-ops for five years) and its savings reserve has reached its target. Then each co-op can choose it, but only in a yearly window, based on audited accounts, with cover starting two years later. The pool can refuse a co-op that's showing warning signs. A co-op that opts out can't opt back in for five years. That stops co-ops from joining only when they're in trouble.
-- **Limits follow the reserve, not the calendar.** Every year, the limits are set by a published formula from the reserve the pool actually has, compared with what a bad recession would cost. If covered amounts grow faster than the reserve, the limits wait.
+- **Limits follow the reserve, not the calendar.** Every year, the limits are set by a published formula from the reserve the pool actually has, compared with what a bad recession would cost ([the formula](#how-big-the-reserve-has-to-be) is below). If covered amounts grow faster than the reserve, the limits wait.
 
 ## How big the reserve has to be
 
 Failures come in waves, and the waves last. US business bankruptcy filings ran about 22,000 a year in 2018 and 2019. In the last big recession they rose to about 43,500 in 2008, 60,800 in 2009, 56,300 in 2010, 47,800 in 2011 and 40,100 in 2012 ([American Bankruptcy Institute](https://abi-org.s3.amazonaws.com/Newsroom/Bankruptcy_Statistics/Total-Business-Consumer1980-Present.pdf); [US Courts](https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/statistics_import_dir/1209_f2.pdf)). Over those five years, that's about six normal years' worth of extra failures. And most small businesses that close never file for bankruptcy at all.
 
-If savings claims normally run 2.5% of covered amounts, six extra years' worth is about 15%. So:
+Closures tell a milder story. In the same Census data, closures of firms like these rose by about half a point in 2008 and 2009, and by about a point for firms three to five years old, and were back down by 2010. The early 1990s were worse. What rises in a recession is the share of closures that leave debts unpaid, which is what bankruptcy filings count, and that's what the pool pays for. So the real wave for the pool is somewhere between: closures say almost no extra years, bankruptcies say six.
 
-- **The target for savings cover is 15% of covered amounts,** not the 1.2% to 2% that government-backed funds aim for. Nothing stands behind this pool, so its reserve has to carry a long recession on its own. It doesn't count on reinsurance, which may not exist for this kind of risk.
+A pilot's co-ops are all young and concentrated in a few industries and regions, which makes a wave worse. So:
+
+- **The target for savings cover is six extra years' worth of expected claims while the pool is young,** meaning until it has 1,000 years of co-op experience and no one industry in one state holds more than a quarter of what's covered. After that it's four years' worth, about 15% of covered amounts for mature co-ops. That compares with the 1.2% to 2% that government-backed funds aim for. Nothing stands behind this pool, so its reserve has to carry a long recession on its own. It doesn't count on reinsurance, which may not exist for this kind of risk.
 - **For final wages, about 10% of covered wages,** by the same reckoning.
-- **Building it takes time.** Premiums carry an extra point a year for savings cover, and an extra 0.1% of payroll for wage cover, until the targets are reached. For savings cover that takes about fifteen years if the pool doesn't grow, longer if it does, which is why limits follow the reserve.
+- **Building it takes time.** Premiums carry an extra point a year for savings cover, and an extra 0.1% of payroll for wage cover, until the targets are reached. For savings cover that takes about fifteen years for mature co-ops if the pool doesn't grow, and a young pool won't reach its target during the pilot at all. That's why limits follow the reserve.
-- **Surcharges wait for the recovery.** After a bad stretch, premiums can rise by up to one point of covered amounts for up to three years. But the surcharge starts only once national unemployment has stopped rising, so it doesn't hit co-ops at the bottom of a recession. Until then, if claims outrun the reserve, everyone is paid the same share of what they're owed, as below.
+- **Surcharges wait for the recovery.** After a bad stretch, premiums can rise by up to one point of covered amounts for up to three years. But the surcharge starts only once national unemployment has stopped rising, so it doesn't hit co-ops at the bottom of a recession. The surcharge is paid by the co-ops that survived. Until then, if claims outrun the reserve, each person's first $2,000 is paid in full, and everyone is paid the same share of the rest, as below.
-- **Concentration is limited by limits, not refusals.** If one industry or one region grows past a set share of what's covered, cover limits for new additions there are lowered. No co-op is refused cover because of its industry.
+- **Concentration is limited by limits, not refusals.** If one industry in one state grows past a quarter of what's covered, cover limits for new additions there are lowered. No co-op is refused cover because of its industry.
+
+**The formula for limits.** The inputs are written into the charter so the actuary can't pick friendlier ones: the Census closure rates by age for 1990 to 2023, at 80%, until the pool has 1,000 years of its own experience. After that, its own record can lower the rates by at most a quarter. An outside actuary signs off on the inputs, not just the result.
+
+- **The reserve has a planned path:** what the build charges should have produced by now if claims had run as expected. Only the reserve counts, not the refundable deposits or future premiums, which are priced to pay normal claims.
+- **If the reserve falls behind the path,** limits for new additions fall in proportion, and the cut applies back to everything added since the last yearly valuation, so nobody can rush additions in ahead of it. Amounts covered before that keep their cover.
+- **Limits come back slowly:** by at most a tenth a year, and only after two years on the path.
+- **No switching back and forth.** A co-op that moves its former members' cover to escrow or a surety bond can't return to the pool for five years, and the pool prices it when it does.
+
+**A bad fifth year.** Suppose a recession starts in the pilot's fifth year. The covered co-ops are three to five years old, priced at about 5.7% a year on average. The reserve is small, about 3% of covered amounts, because most co-ops joined recently. Five bad years at that rate, plus four extra years' worth, come to about 51% of covered amounts. Premiums bring in about 27%, counting a fifth of the paying co-ops lost along the way. With the reserve, that pays about 58 cents on every dollar claimed. With six extra years' worth, or if every closure turns out to be a claim, it's closer to 45 to 50 cents. The industry with the most co-ops is also stressed on its own, at twice its normal rate. For final wages, if a failed co-op owes two weeks on average, the pool pays about three-quarters. If it owes all eight, it pays about a fifth. So in its first years the pool is a partial promise. Each member's yearly statement shows what the pool would pay per dollar in this stress case, as it stands that year.
 
 **What it costs, in the standard example.** A mature 40-person co-op might have $300,000 of protected account slices (at most $8,000 a member, and less for members who take their share in cash), $200,000 of former members' payouts outstanding, and about $2 million a year of payroll, with eight weeks of it, about $300,000, covered by final-wage cover.
 
 | Cover | Premium | A year |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | Final wages | 0.25% of payroll, plus 0.1% to build the reserve | about $7,000 |
-| Former members' payouts | 2%–3%, plus 1 point to build the reserve | $6,000–$8,000 |
+| Former members' payouts | 3%–4% for a co-op past its tenth year, plus 1 point to build the reserve | $8,000–$10,000 |
-| Current members' slices, once offered, if the co-op chooses | 2%–3%, plus 1 point | $9,000–$12,000 |
+| Current members' slices, once offered (after the reserve target is reached), if the co-op chooses | 3%–4% | $9,000–$12,000 |
-| **All three** | | **$22,000–$27,000** |
+| **All three** | | **$24,000–$29,000** |
 
-That's about 4% of the $600,000 annual profit in the [capital accounts example](capital-accounts.md#where-each-years-profit-goes), or about 2% without cover for current members. A strong co-op would pay less, a weak one more. Once the reserve reaches its target, the extra charges stop. The real rates will come from the pool's actuary and its own experience.
+That's about 4% to 5% of the $600,000 annual profit in the [capital accounts example](capital-accounts.md#where-each-years-profit-goes), or about 2.5% without cover for current members. A strong co-op would pay less, a weak one more. Once the reserve reaches its target, the extra charges stop. The real rates will come from the pool's actuary and its own experience.
 
 ## Who runs it, and how claims are paid
 
@@ -137,7 +158,7 @@ Both Fagor and the Italian co-ops got into trouble partly because members' money
 
 ## What it can't promise
 
-- **A wave of failures could outrun the pool.** Co-ops in the same region or industry tend to fail together, in the same recession. The reserve target is sized for a recession like 2009's, but not a worse one, and it takes years to build. If claims exceed what the pool has, it pays everyone the same share of what they're owed at once, then pays the rest as money comes in. That rule is published in advance, and members are told about it every year. This model gives the pool no government backing, so it can't promise more. **It's insurance, not a guarantee.**
+- **A wave of failures could outrun the pool.** Co-ops in the same region or industry tend to fail together, in the same recession. The reserve target is sized for a long recession, but it takes years to build, and in the pilot's early years a bad recession would leave the pool paying roughly 45 to 60 cents on the dollar. If claims exceed what the pool has, it pays each person's first $2,000 in full and everyone the same share of the rest at once, then pays the rest as money comes in. That rule is published in advance, and members are told about it every year. This model gives the pool no government backing, so it can't promise more. **It's insurance, not a guarantee.**
 - **It starts small.** It will be weakest in its early years. That's why coverage phases in, current members' slices come later, and account cover starts only after three years.
 - **Members pay for it, and it isn't cheap.** Premiums come out of account interest and profit. Insuring current members' savings could take most of the interest on the protected slice, which is why co-ops can choose not to. That's the honest price of making savings safer.
 - **Bankruptcy law may not cooperate.** Courts can push former members' claims to the back of the line, behind other creditors, which makes the pool's recoveries even smaller. That's another reason it assumes nothing comes back.