The loop does not stop at a border. The floor differs from place to place, often by a factor of two or more. The capacity to automate sits in a handful of places, while the displacement it causes will reach almost everywhere. A region can pay its people well and still be draining, if what they spend flows out and nothing comes back.
Five problems
- Whose floor applies, when floors differ and people move.
- Places that host no AI firms hold few public inputs to take a share against, yet their people are displaced by imported services, and the money spent on those services leaves.
- Firms move their bookings to wherever the share is lowest.
- Foreign money bids up scarce goods. In a coastal city where outside demand is strong, asking rents can sit far above what it costs to build there.
- The poorest places cannot fund a floor from their own revenue at any level.
Floors are paid where you live
Each jurisdiction prices its own floor, in its own currency, and its residents receive it. Moving to another country switches the floor once the primary residence changes, under the same address rule the floor uses within a country. Who may reside is the question of migration, worked out separately. Within a jurisdiction, every resident receives the floor; there is no second class of residents left without it.
A second lever: the right to sell
The public share is already owed where a firm draws on public inputs: the grid, permits, public data, water. It is also owed where a firm sells. A firm selling AI services into a place draws on that place’s market, its people’s data, and its legal order, and that draws a share. Every place holds this lever, including those that host no AI firms at all.
A common minimum
Places agree a minimum public share, so firms cannot shop for the lowest. Agreements on a minimum rate of tax on companies already exist, with exceptions, which shows the form is possible.
A global floor fund, as the direction
A share of the returns from global commons, such as orbit, spectrum, and the deep seabed, goes toward floors where a place’s own revenue cannot reach a basic minimum. This is the direction of a mature global loop, not a step anyone should expect soon.
Scarce goods bind every buyer alike
The rules for scarce goods apply to every buyer wherever they live. Credit limits on buying existing scarce goods apply to financing from abroad, holdings by non-residents count in the closed-field test, and the same transfer rules apply. No one is singled out by nationality; the rules simply do not stop at the border.
Who resists, who backs it
| Piece | Resists | Backs |
|---|---|---|
| Floors paid where you live | few resist the principle; the fight is over migration | — |
| A share where a firm sells | AI firms, and the places that host them | most of the world: places that use AI and host none of it |
| A common minimum | places that compete on a low share | places losing revenue to that competition |
| A global floor fund | holders of orbital and spectrum rights | the poorest places; the least likely piece soon |
| Scarce-goods rules for foreign buyers | international property investors | residents of high-demand cities |
The global loop is where the framework is weakest, because no single place can write its rules alone. What a place can do is hold the levers it already has, the inputs it grants and the market it opens, and coordinate with others who hold the same.