If me, you and a few other FReepers paid in to buy a swimming pool, and shared its expenses, that would be a co-op. If the city owns the pool and lets everybody use it and forces me you and a few other Freepers to pay for it, that is NOT a co-op.
I belong to a co-op (our local telephone company) which has done so well that we get capital credits ($$$) at the end of the year.
The Feds idea of a co-op is more reminiscent of a black hole.
An even better metaphor, definition. I tried using the metaphor of a growing economic pie with a liberal at the Rick Larsen (D) town hall last week - logic and logical metaphors drive them INSANE...it’s funny, actually, to watch the meltdown..