Before getting into TANSTAAFL, Inflation and the Looting of the American Dream, a brief preface is warranted. It is the editorial view of our publications that news is a mix of good things that occur alongside troubling issues that also take place. In a more perfect world, pointing out how to achieve the good is important. But so too is …

On June 26, 2016, Suzanne Felber, posted via LinkedIn this statement. “One of the biggest issues that manufactured housing has always had to overcome was image. Now that their homes have been built to federal HUD specifications for over 40 years, the days of “trailers” and “mobile homes” are long gone.” Felber had a valid point. But Felber, who has …

‘The best argument against Christianity are the bad behavior of Christians,’ so goes an old saying. It is an understandable notion. But it is based on a false premise, as Jesus himself picked 12 apostles, one of who betrayed Jesus and ten more fled the stark scene of his crucifixion. Christians can behave badly, because they and all have free …

George Orwell wrote about the dystopian fictional world of Double Speak. In the classic novel 1984, Orwell illustrated how definitions and reality were constantly being re-written by the all powerful state. For some who read that as a teen as part of a high school English class decades ago, that may have seen too absurd to believe. But now, numbers …

“The Associated Press Stylebook provides an A-Z guide to issues such as capitalization, abbreviation, punctuation, spelling, numerals and many other questions,” says Perdue University about the AP Stylebook. Wikipedia says: “The AP Stylebook, also known by its full name The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, is an American English grammar style and usage guide created by American journalists …

The Denver Post, NPR, New Yorker, Time, and years of other regional or national news media have periodically told the troubling story about affordable manufactured home community living gone awry. So, the latest report below from the Los Angeles Times (LA Times) is hardly a first, but it does add an interesting wrinkle to the tale that all affordable housing …

“In short, depreciation in manufactured homes are neither inevitable nor is it necessarily a tragedy if it does occur. What’s needed are the facts and a good plan. With the right information, you can make a housing decision or investment that will yield a host of potential benefits, from lifestyle advantages to financial ones, less stress and beyond.” So said …

The Associated Press (AP) reported that “The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The [jury] verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the …

“It would be nice to remove stigma from manufactured homes,” a local official told MHLivingNews about the Stamping Grounds, KY tornado and related destruction. His email added, “but I don’t see it happening as long as they routinely get catastrophic damage from minor incidents.” There is much more to this story from several sources, including from that same on-the ground, …

Samuel “Sam” Strommen from Knudson Law forged an evidence-based and systematic case that points the finger of monopolization at Clayton Homes, 21st Mortgage Corporation, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and several specific members of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI). Minneapolis Federal Reserve professional researchers James A. Schmitz Jr and David Fettig have made their own evidence-based argument that “Monopolies Inflict Great Harm on Low- and …

Manufactured homes are the most proven form of affordable housing in America today, period. Nothing else comes close. That is not an empty or boastful claim. Rather, that statement is based on decades of well-documented facts and evidence. There are numerous research studies, mostly from third parties to manufactured home interests, that document that some 22 million Americans live in …

When someone wants to understand the lack of affordable housing in the U.S., by reading published studies from a range of sources, a few common facts emerge. The underlying causes of the affordable housing crisis observed by experts and partisans are often similar regardless of which of the two major political parties they may favor. For example, Zoning is a …

Why is there so little competition in the manufactured home lending market? While there are several interlocking factors, one of the simplest points to make is that the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not doing the robust lending in the manufactured home market as they are doing for conventional housing. What follows is a step-by-step explanation based …

Anything that has happened before can happen again. So said historian turned politician, Democratic House Majority Whip James Clyburn. Whatever someone’s political beliefs, or lack of them, may be – Clyburn is demonstrably correct on that point. History does not precisely repeat. But once something has occurred in human history, something similar is obviously capable of re-occurring.  Biblically, history was …

The American Dream has to various degrees always included the ideal of home ownership. As conventional housing prices have long been out of reach for millions with more modest earnings and/or a smaller housing budget, the evolution from 1930s-1940s era trailer houses into larger mobile homes occurred during the 1950s into the early 1970s. While many of those post-trailer house …