Add before-launch.md: a founding lottery testing whether serious
pre-launch help (a founder's stipend, a feasibility study, legal setup)
creates more co-ops that last, measured independently of the bank, and
a 5% founder stake payable in verified unpaid work. Fund it from the
loan budget, and correct the pilot's growth arithmetic.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add pay.md: pay bands open to every worker, a ratio each co-op must
choose and measure honestly, a double majority for high pay and for
raises to jobs most members hold, and no one voting alone on their own
pay. Stop the reserve rule from charging co-ops for raising the bottom,
and close its gaps for perks, non-members and related companies.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add high-turnover.md: in home care, a 12-month probation and the
three-quarters rule could fail a co-op doing everything right. Make
membership automatic after a short probation, take the buy-in from
profit shares rather than pay, count agency hours and push-outs, and
phase the rule in. Align the lock, the pilot's safeguards and measures,
worker ownership, the index and open problems.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add conservice.md: the company as it is (from public sources only),
the same business founded as a locked co-op, what the profit split
could mean at its scale under labeled assumptions, whether it would
have grown, and who would have received less. Link it from the
thesis, worker ownership and the index.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add buyouts.md: owners who choose to sell a healthy firm to its workers
can borrow on a separate $100M track with its own test (money plus a
pay floor), a capped independent price, a seller note that shares the
risk, a vote of the whole workforce and the lock. Restate the total
worst case as $450M and answer open problem #12.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add "Making It Last": how public programs get killed (Ex-Im, CDFI Fund,
GGRF, NCCB) and survive (Bank of North Dakota, electric co-ops, Farm
Credit), and rules that assume any president can replace the board
after Trump v. Slaughter. Lending standards fixed in law, a "not tested"
verdict if good applicants are turned away, no freeze from board
vacancies, honest limits on where the money sits, and federal test with
state copies.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add savings-guarantee.md: a co-op-funded insurance pool covering final
unpaid wages, former members' payouts and a protected slice of current
accounts, priced for near-zero recovery by an independent actuary, with
a credit-union-style deposit, phased coverage, pro-rata payment when
short, and rules against phantom profits, early quitting and fraud
rings. Co-ops may no longer take member deposits or sell members bonds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Explain why a permanent lock has precedent (UK CICs, steward ownership,
US nonprofit conversions) and what it prevents (building-society
demutualisation). Enforce it in layers: an independent veto-only lock
share, articles, statute, and a backstop that sends the value to the
federation fund if the lock is ever broken. Treat piecemeal asset sales,
hire-backs and subsidiaries as sales; adapt Argentina's bankruptcy rule,
noting it needs a Bankruptcy Code amendment; state the lock's costs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add precedents.md: Mondragon's Caja Laboral, the US National Consumer
Cooperative Bank, Italy's Coopfond and Marcora Law, each with what went
wrong. Add a support lottery to the pilot (intensive help for a random
half, advisers walled off from lending, all help counted against the
bank), count distressed mergers as closures, and replace unsourced
precedent claims on the bank and argument pages.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add the-long-run.md: the Furubotn-Pejovich worry, the French and
Italian evidence, the plywood "failure of success", and four rules:
the reserve takes its share of pay above the going rate, asset-sale
gains go to the reserve, qualifying development can be spread over
five years with abandonment charged to those who chose it, and
accounts earn Treasury+2 only while at risk. Update capital accounts,
worker ownership, the pilot's measures, open problems and the index.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add capital-accounts.md (profit split, cash share, formula interest,
payout rules, solvency test, savings protections, worked outcomes).
Rewrite founder-problem.md with a discounted co-op vs conventional
comparison, the risk evidence (Hall-Woodward, Hamilton), and bounded
founder tools. Add founder-related measures and safeguards to the
pilot pages, and renumber open problems.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Add "The Pilot, in Numbers": a one-time $350M, ~400-co-op pilot with
a power-calculated sample size, loan limits, a checked definition of
market rate, two pre-registered deciding measures (fair survival with
a pay and membership guardrail, and a Treasury-rate hurdle for the
loan book), a matched SBA comparison plus a lottery at the margin, a
year-12 review, a fast-track vote on success and a self-executing
wind-down on failure. Built around the FONDES and Venezuela failures.
Add "Guarding the Pilot": rules against hidden-boss shells, capital
claim drains, split borrowers, relabeled rescues, zombie survival,
sabotage, a rigged review, and political favoritism.
Link both from the index, bank, test, capital and lock pages, and add
the pilot's weak points and the federal-vs-state question to Open
Problems.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
Replaces the chapters with the v3 foundation: new chapters for the bank,
the lock, the founder problem, the test and intellectual property; removes
conversion, conversion-tax and valuation. Rewrites the overview to lead
with "nobody is forced" and rewords draft-history references for
first-time readers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Adds The Conversion Tax chapter. The tax is withheld in cash from each
buyout payment, the rate schedule is locked on conversion day, brackets
run on cash actually received, pre-bill gifts are added back to the
lifetime ledger, and above-market side payments to former owners count
as proceeds. It explains why taking the tax in kind was rejected
(Koontz, Horne, Tyler). It also corrects the 1950s precedent (capital
gains were capped at 25%) and states plainly how the recycled tax
lowers what workers pay. Open problems now cover proceeds vs gains,
treaty overrides and recession cyclicality.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GsSJ98117VXm9t7rBra5NX
Adds a Valuation chapter. It covers market price, control-size arm's-length
sales, and a formula whose industry multiples come from real acquisitions
and whose profit figures are cleaned of related-party games. Disputes stay
in court (Monongahela), but each side files a final number, costs follow
reasonableness, inflated claims draw a penalty, and workers get an
independent public valuation counsel. Conversion brackets now apply to
lifetime proceeds and look through foundations and trusts. Open problems
are updated for the anticipation discount and conversion-tax durability.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GsSJ98117VXm9t7rBra5NX
jheapsandClaude Opus 5.5