Boots Riley’s film, released earlier this summer, is a funny and insanely inventive trip that has been accurately described as science fiction with a dollop of magical realism. But from the perspective of workers’ rights, it’s frighteningly accurate in its depiction of the world we are heading toward.

In the film, the main character, Cassius Green—played by Lakeith Stanfield—and his friends work at RegalView, a telemarketing company. The employees get only commissions and no wages at all. So far, this doesn’t depart from what’s legal in the real world: Generally, employers are allowed to pay salespeople on a commission basis (although what they’re paid has to add up to minimum wage and in some cases overtime too). In this case, the reality of what is happening in the real-life labor market is actually sometimes worse than the fiction. For example, supermarket baggers or other similar workers have sometimes been paid only in tips, which is plainly illegal. And Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website allows people to assign tasks for as little as a penny. In such cases, many workers end up with paltry earnings. And then there are the gig economy companies that fraudulently treat their workers as independent contractors, paying only commissions to their workforce, who alone bear most of the expenses and virtually all the risk.

Yes, it is quite the chart. It’s so eye-opening, in fact, it prompted equities analyst and Bloomberg Television contributor Barry Ritholtz to state: “I don't understand why the Democrats are not pounding on this chart every single day from now until the midterm election.”

Indeed.

Coincidentally, the above chart looks eerily similar to a graph that shows a sharp divergence between wages and productivity since Ronald Reagan made the world safe for greedy assholes again

Despite all the attacks on her, Krugman argues that Pelosi is a historically successful speaker of the House. Under her leadership, Democrats blocked President George W. Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security; she was a key reason the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, passed; she guided major financial reforms through the chamber; and she helped make the 2009 stimulus bill a reality, which staved off some of the worst effects of the Great Recession.

“It’s quite a record,” Krugman wrote. “Oh, and whenever you hear Republicans claim that Pelosi is some kind of wild-eyed leftist, ask yourself, what’s so radical about protecting retirement income, expanding health care and reining in runaway bankers?”

I hope to god we have a downturn when Donald Trump goes up for reelection. The political models say that rate of change is highly correlated to throwing out an incumbent. Not that I hope for people to lose jobs, but I sure do hope for all our sake's we get rid of that guy.

"Trump’s tax cuts, even though they’re going to the wrong people to stimulate the economy strongly (the rich don’t spend anywhere near as much of any change in their incomes as the poor), will still stimulate it a bit [just before a downturn]."

"...workers have no bargaining power these days."

"You won't get much hassle – in fact I had people thank me for doing what I was doing - from both sides. I had 2 people give me a hard time out of those 1,400 doors."

Have a Sharpie type pen with you. You probably will have some sort of flier to leave at the door for non-answers. If there is any kind of school flags or anything add a note to the flier like "Go Hokies!" "Go Hoos!" If you don't know the mascot have your phone and google it. Or you can just add a "Tim says Hi!" type thing.