Lifetime Occupancy Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

The current occupant of the Oval Office does have a tactic ignored here, not exactly a legitimate ‘negotiating’ tactic, but a tactic that he has used throughout his life. That tactic is welching.Verb: “To welch”, pronounced “welsh”; Noun: welcher, pronounced “welsher”. And yes, “welch” is the correct spelling.Welching, for the non-native English-speaking readers, is the failure to honor a debt or obligation incurred through a promise or agreement, usually, but not always, a bet. It is a word usually used as follows: “He welched on his bet, he is a welcher.”Welching is widely considered to be highly dishonorable, especially in betting, where written agreements rarely exist. A welcher will be shunned in the betting community, and to call someone out as a ‘welcher’ is serious business.*** Someone known as a welcher will no longer be allowed to place bets, lay off bets, borrow money to place bets, or otherwise engage in the betting world. The word exists because in the betting world, your honor is the only thing enforcing the bet, because until recently you couldn’t enforce the bet legally, except in the state of Nevada.The word is rarely used in the business community, because in business there is a legally enforceable written contract, usually signed by both parties in good faith, and going to court to enforce a contract is considered the least desirable outcome and done only as a last resort, because it breaks the business relationship.But the current occupant of the Oval Office has made a lifetime career of welching on his contracts. He does not contract in good faith. He agrees to sign a contract not because he intends to honor it, but because he intends to breach the contract after he has gotten all of the value he can out of the contract, but before he has fulfilled his end of the contract.He forces the other party to do one of the following: 1) negotiate from a position of weakness (the other party has invested his time and money in delivering the project, and now has a cash flow problem because the Trump Co has failed to pay); or 2) spend money on lawyers to settle for a sum that, in the end, might very well be less than he would have to pay in attorney’s fees; or 3) go to trial, which is very expensive, to risk losing it all plus attorney’s fees, and have to contractually pay Trump Co’s attorneys fees as well.Having been in court literally thousands of times, Trump Co has attorneys on staff and on retainer, and knew that the attorneys would almost certainly settle for less than would have been paid in the original contract, plus he won’t have to pay the other side’s attorney’s fees in most settlements.**** Plus, he delays paying, sometimes for years, while continuing to have the use of that money.The current occupant of the Oval Office is still a welcher. He has welched on almost every single election promise that he has made, including the tax cut, which he promised would not benefit him and would benefit the middle class. He even made a second promise to pass a second tax cut benefiting the middle class right before the most recent election, and then immediately welched.He did not “fail” in any of his election promises, because he never intended to keep any of those promises. He welched. He entered into an agreement which his voters in good faith believed he would keep, when he knew all along, he never intended to keep any of those promises. Because he is a welcher.He has welched on multiple promises that America has made: He welched on health care. He welched on the Paris Accords. He welched on the Dreamers. He is trying to welch on NATO.** He welched on green card holders. He welched on the environment. He welched on public schools. He welched on student loan help. He welched on coal country. He welched on human rights. He welched on civil rights. He welched on promises that illegal immigrants who served honorably in the military could become citizens. He welched on ‘law and order.’The hilarious part is, he has even welched, at least in part, on the Russians, who fully expected to get sanctions lifted, in return for their now undisputed help getting him elected. But Congress enforced the sanctions, and the current occupant of the Oval Office can’t lift them. Now, he’s making up for that by welching on Syria, the Kurds, and Afganistan, and has threatened to welch on South Korea. All of which makes Putin very happy, and probably makes up for the welching on sanctions.It is impossible to deal with a welcher, because a welcher, by definition, has no intention of honoring his promises (or, in this case, the promises of our country). A welcher promises that when he ‘wins the next one’, he’ll pay, but in fact he won’t, he’ll just place another bet, and pretend he never made the previous promise. That is why welching is such a big deal in the betting community. That is why everyone who has dealt with the current occupant of the Oval Office has come away with a bad taste in their mouths. Because the current occupant of the Oval Office is a welcher, and no one wants to call it like it is.PS: If you are wondering why he hasn’t welched on Putin, even though it’s not particularly popular with his base, a welcher always pays the enforcer that will break his bones and cut off his hands.********End. Some footnotes:*Footnote: Any person in Texas could have told you in 2015 that a concrete wall—or any wall—was a) not wanted; b) not practical; c) completely unsafe; and d) absolutely not going to be paid for by Mexico. In fact, tens of thousands of persons from Mexico legally cross on foot into the US every single day for retail reasons (spending money and paying 8.5% sales tax) and to visit *legal* family members on this side of the border. They cross back every night. Texans do the reverse, visiting family and buying duty-free alcohol, dental services, and cheap prescription drugs. It is a mutually beneficial relationship on both sides.Closing the border has devastating effects on the economy, just ask the residents of any border city where a crossing has been closed permanently, there are several in Texas. It kills the town.**Footnote: NATO is, specifically, a promise to the rest of the nations to help prevent unprovoked aggression by their neighbors. It benefits the US more than it does Europe. That’s one reason why we pay more. But the current occupant of the Oval Office is bullying the member nations, lying and calling *them* welchers, when in fact, he is looking for an excuse to welch on them.***Footnote: welching is still serious business in the betting community. A few years ago, a betting community thread caused a scandal when a bettor looking for advice revealed online that he had won a substantial (at least to him) fantasy team bet from a famous, winning, and ostensibly wealthy poker player, and was unable to collect, calling said poker player out by name. This led to multiple additional comments from other members of the betting community that they had also been burned by the same person, ultimately leading to an admission by the poker player that he had a gambling addiction and was deeply in debt.****Footnote: Trump Co. also knew that in most cases, the other side’s attorneys would advise the client to settle because going to trial would be enormously expensive, and take years and years, and Trump Co appeared to have very deep pockets.Until recently, it was not widely known that the current occupant of the Oval Office had been involved in court proceedings more than 3500(!!!) times, that he habitually defrauded his contractors and the general public, or that he habitually entered into contracts that he had no intention of honoring (also fraud).It was also widely believed that he was much, much, much richer than he actually is, in part because he has spent his entire life fraudulently representing his wealth—telling the press that he is much wealthier than he is, telling the courts that he is bankrupt, telling the IRS that he is charitable, telling the general public that he is a self-made man and that welching is ‘good business strategy’.So, to attorneys on the outside, it would appear that he had deep, deep, deep pockets, able to weather any court battle, and would so advise their clients. Any attorney on the ‘inside’ was legally bound, even after the relationship ended, not to reveal that Trump is a welcher, and not nearly as wealthy as he claims. He also had relationships with most of the large law firms, which meant that his opponents had to rely on smaller, less well-funded, law firms.

The population of the Republic of Ireland is about 4.9 million, and we are certainly not going to be of one mind as to what we think of Northern Ireland unionists. I am pretty sure that my views on the topic would differ from those of, say, David Cullinane, the new Sinn Féin TD for Waterford. In addition, there are a great many unionists in Northern Ireland—over 900,000 of them—and most of us nowadays would balk at making sweeping generalizations about a community that large.That said, the attitude of most people in the Republic toward Northern Ireland unionists has evolved dramatically during my lifetime. When I was growing up in the 1950s/early1960s, it was almost universally held that unionists were either collaborators in the continuing English (not “British”) occupation of the “Six Counties,” or misguided fellow Irishmen who would eventually repent of their folly and join us in a united Ireland. Very few people in my world had ever met a unionist of course, and I think no one ever considered that unionists might have their own valid reasons for wanting to maintain the union with Britain.When the Troubles erupted in 1968, the loyalist attacks on the civil rights marches and on Catholics’ homes seemed to confirm our worst stereotypes of the unionists. But those of us who paid closer attention could see that not all unionists were “Paisleyites,” and that some unionist leaders were trying to find a fair and reasonable resolution to the conflict. Then the Provisional IRA emerged on the scene and it became clear that neither community in Northern Ireland had a monopoly on hateful and vicious conduct.Travel broadens the mind, as they say. I grew up and moved away from home, and then moved away from Ireland. Over the course of my life I’ve mixed with Northern Ireland unionists as work colleagues, fellow parents, and next-door neighbors. And what I found was simply this: they are people just like me. In the US in the 1980s, I met a man who not long before had been a bête noir of Irish nationalists, a polarizing figure during the Ulster Workers’ Council strike. To my surprise, he was an affable fellow with a deadly sense of humor.One of the implications of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement) is that for the first time, Irish nationalists north and south of the border formally recognized unionists’ right to maintain the union with Britain. Indeed, in a referendum to ratify the GFA, 94.4 percent of voters in the Republic accepted that principle. Now, I do not claim that this was the foremost thing in all the voters’ minds—there were many other reasons for voting for the GFA. But they voted for it nonetheless, something that would have been inconceivable thirty years earlier.Following the removal of the militarized border and the opening up of economic activity between the two parts of Ireland, many southerners found themselves interacting regularly with Northern Ireland unionists for the first time in their lives. Gradually, fairly normal relationships developed among people from both sides of the border.So, over twenty years after the end of the Troubles, what do people in the Republic of Ireland think of Northern Ireland unionists? I think most southerners now recognize that the unionist community mainly consists of ordinary people with ordinary desires and aspirations (a decent job, a comfortable home, a good life for their children). Many of us have friends from “up North,” and don’t let a potential difference of opinion over politics get in the way of normal human relations. This more relaxed situation has come about not just because of the end of the violence in Northern Ireland and the discrimination that preceded it, but also because of a liberalizing of attitudes on just about everything in both parts of Ireland.Nevertheless, people in the ROI continue to be repelled by the DUP and their ilk, though we can distinguish between DUP politicians (most of whom don’t even pretend to conceal their bigotry) and DUP voters (many of whom are just sensibly voting against Sinn Féin). But if we are being honest, there are still a few evolutionary throwbacks on “our” side too, some of whom are even vocal on Quora.

I think that this plan shows exactly why the ERG desire a no-deal Brexit.It is an erotic spasm (sorry, Vince), from neoliberals wanting completely free trade at any cost to the people of this country and their means of making a living.I welcome this coming into the spotlight of public review, but doubt that the mainstream media will give it the analysis it so richly deserves.There are no timescales given as to when the supposed benefits will be realised, nor is there any mention of those sectors of the economy that will be effectively destroyed by this approach.It was approved by:• David Davis MP, former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union• Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, chairman of the European Research Group• Gisela Stuart, former Labour MP• Theresa Villiers MP, former Secretary of State for Northern IrelandLet us take one detail which is admitted. On Brexit day 1 there will be FIVE TIMES more documentation required for export/import to the EU. This is probably a huge underestimate. Brexit was supposed to reduce bureaucracy, not increase it 5 times, but that is the consequence.Among other consequences are the destruction of manufacturing industry and agriculture.Here is the headline list of aspirations:• Full market access and national treatment• Zero tariffs in goods including agriculture• Maximum regulatory recognition for both goods and services and a mechanism to manage differences that arise due to divergence in future• Baseline intellectual property protection, government procurement and investment rules• Regulatory coherence, including specific sectoral annexes (e.g. pharmaceuticals)• Mutual recognition of occupational licensing• Specific sectoral annexes in key areas including telecoms, data and financial servicesI understand Full market access, but national treatment?????Zero tariffs in goods including agriculture. This means that goods can be dumped on us by larger competitors in order to destroy out manufacturing sector. We would have to agree to import beef injected with hormones and chlorinated chicken and unwelcome GM crops which would undercut our agricultural sector. They could only compete by lowering standards and so being unable to export to the EU.Maximum regulatory recognition….. Well, this is in the realms of wishful thinking. It is a two way process, and the other side has to be willing to play ball. Besides, the divergence mechanism sounds really difficult, and is not set out in detail. This is bullshit.Baseline intellectual property… Meaning we don’t get properly protected intellectual rights.Regulatory coherence for pharmaceuticals sounds reasonable, but we would be obeying other’s rules without being able to influence them. Why not stay within current agreements and contribute to these regulatory bodies?Mutual recognition of occupational licencing sounds good, but it requires two-way agreement. This is a proposal, not a plan. Also, even if it is agreed, it is limited by other factors. So UK haulage drivers might be able to get the necessary licence to drive in Europe, but still face major increases in insurance fees and the time and inconvenience of the added bureaucracy.Specific sectoral annexes…… This goes from wishful thinking to cloud cuckoo land.ConclusionThis plan depends on negotiating a series of agreements with the EU which will almost certainly not be agreed to. It admits to problems, but fails to admit the larger consequences of these actions.As in all neoliberal arguments it is based on increasing wealth for the country without reference to the people of the country. In order for it to work you would have to believe in the voodoo of ‘trickle-down’ economics. No sane person believes in this anymore, and it is not even defended by neoliberal economists, as it has been intellectually exploded.Perhaps some proper economist or economic journalists can dissect this line by line.No-one who voted Leave did so to make themselves poorer. Some will benefit financially from Brexit, but only to the cost of the country as a whole. The vast majority will be poorer if this goes ahead. And there is no end to the impoverishment for my lifetime, that of my children, or my grandchildren, who should be coming up to retirement if JRM’s 50 year estimate has even a slight ring of truth.This plan is a fair definition of a neoliberal agenda. It is utter bullshit.