It may seem grand to imagine a world that was simple, honest, and straightforward. But it’s not. So, are there any good reasons for pretending otherwise? This weekly headlines review plus the headline topics will weave together a variety of what some may at first blush think of as completely disconnected topics. Well, people think and do all sorts of things, don’t they? For approaching 15 years, we have provided the documented runaway leading platform for the manufactured housing’s “Industry News, Tips, and Views that Pros Can Use.” ^© At MHProNews and for about a dozen years at our MHLivingNews sister-site, we have long cited other sources of information, unlike many (most?) of our rivals which may write something with little, inadequate, or no sourcing for their remarks and information. This platform for years useful and descriptive tag lines that include “News through the lens of manufactured housing and factory-built housing” ^© adding: “We Provide, You Decide.” ^© In more recent years, we periodically shared the tag line: “Intelligence for your MHLife.” ^© Without a doubt, the executives of mega corporations that have major investments in manufactured housing have their sources for ‘intelligence’ on manufactured housing. Kevin Clayton is one of those who have said so. The fact that billions of dollars have been invested in companies that are collectively performing at a fraction of the production pace that occurred in 1995-2000 should suggest to thinkers that those mega-investors are okay with the status quo. With that brief backdrop, Part I of this article will provide the press release from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on the 50^th anniversary of the passage of what became known as the HUD Code for manufactured housing. Pay close attention to what HUD said and then compare it to what independent, third-party researchers who have looked into manufactured housing’s underperformance, and more broadly that of factory-built housing in general, had to say as to when this pattern began and why it is occurring.

For a variety of reasons, a focused analysis on that milestone announced by HUD plus those researchers views into manufactured housing are found in Part II.  Then, this article will gallup into the headlines for the week in review (Part III). Part IV, our ‘traditional’ weekly postscript will help frame the broader wrap up to these vexing issues.

In the HUD press release that follows, the yellow highlighting is added by MHProNews.

Part I

HUD No. 24-213 HUD Public Affairs (202) 708-0685

FOR RELEASE Wednesday August 21, 2024

HUD Celebrates 50 Years of Investing in Communities, Helping Families Access Affordable Housing, and Ensuring Safe and Affordable Manufactured Homes

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, which created several critical programs that have benefited millions of American families

WASHINGTON – This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Housing and Community Development (HCD) Act of 1974, which created several programs—including the Housing Choice Voucher program, the Project Based Rental Assistance program and Community Block Development Grant program—to provide access to quality, safe, affordable homes for all. Collectively, these programs ensure families have access to affordable housing. The legislation also included the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Act, creating what is commonly referred to as the HUD Code, which maintains national standards for safe, durable, efficient and affordable manufactured homes. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD continues to expand these successful programs in alignment with the President’s goals to lower housing costs for all Americans and reduce barriers to affordable housing.

“Like President Biden, and Vice President Harris, I believe there is nothing Americans can’t do when we do it together. The groundbreaking programs we are celebrating today have provided affordable housing to countless Americans in urban, suburban, and rural communities. These programs demonstrate that when we act boldly, we meaningfully improve people’s daily lives,” said Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman. “We also know there is more to be done and that is why this Administration has proposed ambitious new housing investments and we call on Congress to act to help people with current high housing costs.”

On August 22, 1974, the HCD Act was signed into law, to provide the foundations for better housing for all Americans and boost the long-range prospects a robust domestic housing market. The 1974 Act helped build the nation’s largest housing programs to meet the needs of lower income households. These programs include:

• The Housing Choice Voucher program (tenant-based Section 8), which unlocked existing privately owned rental housing for very low-income families, now serves more than 2.3 million households.
• The Project Based Rental Assistance program (project-based Section 8), which provided subsidy for private developers to build housing to serve very low-income households, now serves more than 1.3 million households.

The legislation of 1974 also created the Community Block Development Grant (CDBG), a resource for more than 1,000 local communities to address several community development needs, including rehabilitating housing and upgrading aging infrastructure. Through CDBG-Disaster Recovery, more than $100 billion has been used since 1992 to help communities across America manage long-term recovery needs after extreme weather events and major disasters. The legislation also authorized the creation of a nationwide performance-based building code for manufactured housing, which simultaneously improved the safety of new manufactured housing, improved efficiency of mass production and reduced construction costs. Today, the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, commonly known as the “HUD Code,” remains the preemptive federal standard for ensuring that manufactured housing – which houses more than 20 million Americans – remain safe, durable, and affordable. In the past three years, HUD has ensured the safe and affordable production of approximately 360,000 manufactured homes that adhere to the HUD Code.

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD is not only celebrating the programs, but it is also investing in making them better:

• Working to permanently authorize the CDBG-Disaster Recovery Program to more expeditiously and efficiently help communities recover. HUD, through the Biden-Harris Administration, is simultaneously seeking to permanently authorize the CDBG-DR program while also issuing a “Universal Notice,” which would significantly improve the transparency, predictability, and efficacy of these funds directed to impacted communities.
• Taking extensive steps to strengthen, streamline, and expand the Housing Choice Voucher program to help families find affordable housing. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the program has seen its largest expansion in 20 years, including 70,000 Emergency Housing Vouchers and 20,000 new fair share vouchers. The Biden-Harris Administration has also implemented the biggest program regulatory updates since 1996, including changes to make it easier to transition homeless Americans into permanent housing. HUD has also increased maximum voucher rents to ensure that voucher holders can better compete for units in markets where rents are rising. In addition, President Biden’s 2025 Budget proposes $32.8 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program, which will provide housing for 2.3 million individuals and families, including funds for new vouchers to help 20,000 more low-income individuals and families find and afford housing. The President’s budget also proposes $7.5 billion to create new project-based rental assistance at a scale not seen in decades.
• Making HUD-assisted homes more resilient than ever. Under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, HUD is helping to finance energy efficiency and climate resilience measures at more than 170 properties participating in its Multifamily project-based rental assistance programs, rehabilitating the rental homes of more than 20,000 individuals and families to make them more energy efficient and climate resilient.
• Proposing critical and consistent updates to the HUD Code to ensure manufactured homes are safe, quality places to live. During the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD has raised the importance of Manufactured Housing through creation of a new Office of Manufactured Housing Programs. This Administration implemented a large HUD code update in 2021 that included provisions for attached manufactured homes (townhome style), attached garages and carports, and included requirements for carbon monoxide alarms for homes with gas appliances among other changes., HUD has proposed, and is soon finalizing, one of the largest updates to the HUD Code in more than three decades. In addition to making changes that will increase the quality, sustainability, and resilience of manufactured homes, the new rule would enable single family multi-unit homes to be built under the HUD Code for the first time, extending the cost-saving benefits of manufactured housing to denser urban and suburban infill settings.

HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research is publishing a number of research papers looking back at the Housing Choice Voucher and the Community Development Block Grant programs over the past 50 years with their Summer and Fall editions of Cityscape. The Housing Choice Voucher program edition is currently available, and the Community Development Block Grant edition which will publish in November. In addition, HUD has published a research roadmap for offsite construction of housing that looks back at HUD’s role over the past 50 years.

##

HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. …

###

 

Part II – A Manufactured Housing Industry Focused Analysis on Above from HUD

1) HUD said above that they “celebrate” the production of about 360,000 new HUD Code homes without mentioning that in 1998, more HUD Code manufactured homes were produced in that one year (373,143 new manufactured homes) than in the last the years combined. The actual production for 2021-2022-2023 was 307,823.  Why did they say 360,000? Don’t they look at their own data? The Manufactured Housing Association for Regularity Reform (MHARR) website production data section may offer a clue. Earlier this month, MHARR reported that year to date production of HUD Code manufactured homes: “2024 now totals 51,165 homes.” 307,823 plus 51,165 equals 358,988.  So, HUD seems to be providing an approximation of what has been produced by the entire industry since Biden-Harris took office. But as noted, that misses the point that the industry produced about that or more from 1995-1999.

 

 

2) Perhaps it is coincidental. But just as enactment during the mobile home era of the legislation that resulted in the HUD Code for manufactured housing witnessed a sharp fall in the sales of mobile homes-turned by law and new preemptive standards into manufactured housing, so too when the HUD Code was modified by the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (a.k.a.: MHIA, MHIA 2000, 2000 Reform Law, 2000 Reform Act), production dropped again. Note that the implication here isn’t that the MHIA or 2000 Reform Law caused that drop. Indeed, the changes made by the 2000 Reform Act were meant to boost sales in part through the enforcement of “enhanced preemption.”  But that begs the question. Why did production fall instead of grow? That topic is explored in the report linked below and numerous others. Several of the recent reports posted in the headlines in review, including new items on the Masthead, shed still more light on that topic.

 

3) It is 5.45 AM ET on 8.25.2024. So, four days have passed since this press release in Part I was posted by HUD. At this time, there is no specific mention on the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) home page, news page, or news feed page of this landmark date. So, there is no analysis or commentary by MHI of what was said by HUD. But nor is there any apparent mention of this 50 years anniversary of the enactment of the HUD Code reported by MHI linked MHInsider, ManufacturedHomes.com “news” blog, on Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds “MobileHomeUniversity.com” website, nor by self-proclaimed manufactured housing ‘historian,’ ‘news maven,’ and MHI “member emeritus” George F. Allen. That’s a pretty sorry state of affairs for the manufactured housing history and trade media beyond MHProNews and MHLivingNews, isn’t it?

 

4) But it isn’t just the industry’s so-called trade media and MHI that merits a more careful look. It is also HUD itself.

Anyone who wants to grasp what has occurred in manufactured housing must keep in mind that a key part of the thesis of Minneapolis Federal Reserve senior economist James A. “Jim” Schmitz Jr. and his colleagues is that HUD and conventional builders have sabotaged the manufactured home industry since the earliest days of the HUD Code. If that sounds preposterous to some, look at the annotated graphic below. The peak of manufactured home industry performance was achieved around the time that the preemptive HUD Code (see above) was debated and finally enacted into federal law. Not since the early 1970s has the manufactured home industry ever attained the type of production that it has before the HUD Code took effect on June 15, 1976. Yet the population has grown. The need for affordable housing has grown. Technology has advanced. Why aren’t more manufactured homes being produced now than in the early 1970s when production was approaching 600,000 units a year? Schmitz and his colleagues have answers for that (see further below) and they have called that ‘sabotaging monopoly’ tactics.

 

 

5) Before probing deeper, it would be wonderful to see a well evidenced alternative thesis to that of Schmitz and his colleagues. After a series of attempts, Copilot consistently was unable to find any online refutation of the arguments made by Schmitz and his colleagues. This is a pull quote.

1. Monopolies and Their Impact:
   • James A. Schmitz Jr., a senior economist at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, has extensively explored the effects of “sabotaging monopoly” power on manufactured homes and prefabricated housing¹.
   • His research highlights the harmful consequences of monopolistic practices, including limitations on industry growth and affordability.
   • While I don’t have a direct refutation link, it’s essential to consider alternative viewpoints and analyses…”

 

6) Copilot isn’t wrong in saying that the other viewpoints in a debate should be considered. But Copilot can’t find another viewpoint that takes on their “sabotaging monopoly” allegations. So, HUD, as well as others involved in those alleged but evidence-based sabotaging monopoly tactics are not known to exist at this time.

Per a Power-Point by:

• James A. Schmitz, Jr.
  Arilton Teixeira
  Mark L. J. Wright

they prepared a presentation for a Conference Creating Edward Prescott Fellowship on Sept. 21st, 2018. The trio stressed that these were their views and not that of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.  Here was the title.

How HUD and NAHB Created the U.S. Housing Crisis

In some browsers and devices, if someone right clicks on the above and selects open in a new tab, they can see the entire presentation Schmitz, Teixeira and Wright. Why is their research not found on the MHI website? Why isn’t it found on other trade publication sites in manufactured housing that are MHI-aligned? A search of Bing for that headline turned up the following as the top link.

History: Monopolies (HUD/NAHB) Sabotage Factory-Built Industry With their survival in doubt, monopolies in the traditional building sector (also called stick-built housing), including HUD and NAHB, erected barriers and restrictions on factory producers, causing the industry to collapse, creating the housing crisis.

That link and quote is from the MHProNews website. As noted, it included a link to this download and the Schmitz et al power-point delivered presentation to other professionals. Why hasn’t MHI pounded the table with HUD or the NAHB about that document? Why have they instead openly joined forces with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and others in the conventional housing world, arguably in an effort to undermine production in the manufactured home industry’s sector?

 

 

7) The level of duplicity in several (not all) segments of American society is breathtaking for those willing to look at the evidence. See the George Carlin video on the ‘game is rigged’ and ‘they have you by the b-lls’ among the headlines for the week in review.

 

8) That duplicity and treachery is openly being discussed between the two major parties (see headlines for the week in review), and by a former lifelong and prominent Democrat, who turned independent. That would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of course, Democratic leaders have and will continue to have to deny RFK Jr’s allegations. Democratic leaders have and will continue to have to denounce and decry both Kennedy and deposed President Donald J. Trump. But it is up to tens of millions of voters, meaning individuals like you, to sort out who is the closest to being the truth teller. Is it Democrats? Kennedy? Trump and his MAGA supporters? Because if Trump and Kennedy are telling the truth, then Carlin had a point. The system is rigged. But if Democratic leaders like Obama-Biden, Biden-Harris, and now Harris-Walz are telling the truth, then your life has been getting better due to their phenomenal leadership. Just ask HUD, which said above:

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD is not only celebrating the programs, but it is also investing in making them better:

HUD’s press release also said:

“Like President Biden, and Vice President Harris, I believe there is nothing Americans can’t do when we do it together. The groundbreaking programs we are celebrating today have provided affordable housing to countless Americans in urban, suburban, and rural communities. These programs demonstrate that when we act boldly, we meaningfully improve people’s daily lives,” said Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman. “We also know there is more to be done and that is why this Administration has proposed ambitious new housing investments and we call on Congress to act to help people with current high housing costs.”

Biden-Harris and HUD have spoken. Life is getting better for most Americans. For those who are over 600,000 who are homeless, for those who are facing eviction due to the stresses of too much of their income going toward housing, don’t believe your lying eyes.

 

9) As MHProNews reported weeks ago (6.29.2024), it is MHI that openly said and continues to say on their home page that they are ‘celebrating’ 50 years of partnership with HUD.

 

 

10) And again, on July 8, 2024.

 

11) Either MHI leaders are massively inept, mendacity, paltering and hidden agendas reign, or some combination of those factors apparently exist (see headlines in review). The duplicity at MHI is breathtaking for an objective, truth-seeking viewer of the evidence.  Look again at the background to the researchers of the sabotaging monopoly thesis.

James A. Schmitz, Jr. ¹
Arilton Teixeira ²
Mark L. J. Wright ³

1. Senior Economist, Minneapolis Fed
2. FUCAPE Business School.
3. Director of Research, Minneapolis Fed.

 

12) Once more, their presentation was to: a Conference Creating Edward Prescott Fellowship on Sept. 21st, 2018 has been followed by multiple other scholarly papers and presentations. MHProNews doesn’t claim to have reported on them all, but we and our sister site, as Bing’s AI powered Copilot observed, have reported on several. Why haven’t others in the orbit of the Manufactured Housing Institute done the same? Hold that thought, and ponder this text from the slide presentation by Schmitz, Teixeira and Wright.

• Two Methods to Make Houses
  > Traditional method (very old method)
  > Highly skilled workers
  > Sometimes called “stick” production; construction site has
  sticks extending upward
• Factory production
  > Homes made just like other durable goods, like cars and such
  > Imagine automobiles being made with traditional methods
  > Toyota could build a Camry over six-month period in your
  driveway

That’s an argument that this publication and our MHLivingNews sister site has periodically presented for years (the illustration below was uploaded October 25, 2017). We don’t claim to have created that analogy. But it is useful.

 

13) Now, look at the information from the next page of the Schmitz, Teixeira and Wright presentation.

• History: Surge of Factory Production
  > Over 1960s, factory production of single-family homes (SFH)
  increased from 10% to 60% of total SFH construction
  (total=factory production + stick-built construction).
  > Share was increasing. Would we see 70%? 80%?
  > Factory production was much more efficient, leading to much
  lower prices. Large number of low-income Americans were
  now becoming homeowners

Look again at the historic mobile home to manufactured housing era production graphic above. Then consider the next page of the Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright PowerPoint presentation.

• History:Monopolies(HUD/NAHB) Sabotage
  Factory-Built Industry
  With their survival in doubt, monopolies in the traditional
  building sector (also called stick-built housing), including
  HUD and NAHB, erected barriers and restrictions on factory
  producers, causing the industry to collapse, creating the
  housing crisis
  Today’s factory-built home industry is a shell of what it was,
  about 10% of SFH
  In words of Henry Simons, “monopolies sabotaged the
  industry

 

14) Here, MHProNews editorially observes that the term “monopolies” ought to be understood as the oligopoly style of monopolization, and it should be seen through the lens of the insights of the economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

 

15) To our knowledge, only MHProNews/MHLivingNews has invested the time, energy, resources, and efforts into exposing what these researchers and others have said and tested it against other known information.  We have said several times that while their thesis (i.e.: Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright) could be refined on the use of terminology, the evidence largely seems to support their contentions.

Let’s jump ahead to one more slide from their presentation and encourage readers to look at the entire presentation.

• Housing Crisis from Household Perspective
  > Homelessness, repeated homelessness
  > Eviction, repeated eviction
  > Threat of eviction
  > Less significant
  > Unable to pursue opportunities in other areas
  > Spending more than 50% of income on shelter

HUDBuildersCreatedUSHousingCrisisSchmitzTeixeiraWrightMinneapolistFedManufacturedHousingConferenceCreatingEdwardPrescottFellowshipNAHBMHProNews.pdf (manufacturedhomepronews.com)

Click the link above and open in a new tab to see their thoughtful presentation.

 

16) What that means is that about multiple generations have come on the scene that were raised simply accepting certain things about the nexus of business and government. While some question it, others don’t. While some critique the problematic performance of HUD and those who claim that they are doing such great things, including voices from the Democratic or left side of the political spectrum, others are oddly silent, as if the system is working as it should. But as a headline a few weeks ago aptly noted, the proverbial canary in the coal mine for housing is homelessness.

 

William Haupt III Exposé: ‘Homeless at Historic Rate under Biden-Harris’ ‘Homelessness is the Canary in Mine-Something Radically Wrong if Anybody is Living on Streets’-MHLinks; plus MHMarkets

 

Things have not gotten better, under Biden-Harris, as even HUD’s own data demonstrated (see above).  With more spending, matters have only deteriorated.  The solution proposed by leftists? Spend still more on programs that have for 50 years failed to do what they claimed they were going to do.

 

 

17) It isn’t just housing. As the Heritage Foundation and others have noted, the so-called “Great Society” programs launched in the 1960s have routinely failed to achieve their stated goals too. What has occurred instead is an:

• institutionalization of poverty,
• of a dearth of affordable housing,
  and as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pointed out (see headlines in review) health outcomes in the U.S. are also in retreat.
• More federal spending, poorer outcomes.

That isn’t to imply that more spending is per se bad.

But it does reveal that the underlying presumption of those programs clearly out to be questioned, because they are not working as advertised.

For example. MHLivingNews provided a report during the Obama-Biden era that revealed how HUD could have repurposed their budget and given away manufactured homes (not to advocate for that, but to make this next point). Within a decade or so, the program itself could be eliminated because most everyone could be a homeowner. There would be no more need for subsidies. No more need for millions of rental units. America could be a nation of owners building generational wealth. Instead, the current system has locked in poverty. That happens to be the thesis, wait for it, of the award-winning Poverty Inc and remarks made by Peter Buffett (see below). Like Kennedy or not, several of his points were made in one of the videos in the first article below, with no need to mention his name at all. And many, if not most of the sources for these next reports and documentary dramas are from voices on the left.

 

 

18) The analysis by MHLivingNews of left-leaning IPS’ look into poverty and inequality drew positive recognition from that group. Why? Perhaps because a careful look at data from the left and right produces amazingly eye-opening revelations. The system appears to be rigged in a way that keeps people in poverty, while making it seem like all of these poverty programs are doing something positive. While individuals may seem to benefit, society as a whole and the opportunities of those individuals are being limited if not squashed. Who ends up as the winners? The wealthiest in society who apparently have rigged the system to work in this contorted manner.

 

 

19) The point here is not to cut off spending programs. Too many have come to depend on them. But a case can be made that repurposing the spending on those programs with a view to allow them to be phased out over time is warranted. As was noted above, with HUD for example, it is possible (in theory) to buy enough HUD Code manufactured homes and give them to those in need where over time the entire HUD agency could essentially be eliminated. Let’s look.

20) Per the U.S. Census Bureau, in February 2024 the national average cost for a single section manufactured home was $80,200. While costs vary widely, perhaps $50,000 would pay for an improved lot, off-street parking, and installation for that home (less in some areas, more in others). The left-leaning National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) says that some 7.3 million affordable housing units are needed. 7.3 million times $130,000 = $949,000,000,000. That’s less than Ilhan Omar said she wants to spend on a plan that won’t solve the housing crisis.

 

21) Congress already passed a law that would allow housing vouchers to be used toward the purchase of a manufactured home. What happened to that plan?  Perhaps like the MHIA of 2000 and its “enhanced preemption” provision, it appears to be lost in the weeds. Once passed, why hasn’t MHI pressed for use of those vouchers and federal preemption? Would those have boosted production too much? The point, again, isn’t to advocate for a new giveaway that is just lipstick on an old and failed giveaway. Rather, the point is that given the tortured dynamics already at play, that a pragmatic path could be crafted where existing laws could be used to transition potentially millions of Americans from rentals into homeownership.

 

22) When some 65 to 70 percent of the population believes that the system is rigged and that the nation is on the wrong course, it is well past time to look at the realities of these systems and see what needs to be changed in order for more Americans to get an authentic instead of a faux chance at the American Dream. Merely regurgitating federal press releases, without pulling back the veil on the realities obviously doesn’t work to achieve what those programs have claimed for decades.

Don’t miss Part IV.

With no further adieu, here are the headlines for the week in review from 8.18 to 8.25.2024.

 

Part III

What’s New on MHLivingNews

What’s New from Washington, D.C. from MHARR

 

 

 

 

What’s New on the Masthead

 

Select Items from Tim Connor and the Words of Wisdom

What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews

Saturday 8.24.2024

 

Friday 8.23.2024

 

Thursday 8.22.2024

 

Wednesday 8.21.2024

 

Tuesday 8.20.2024

 

Monday 8.19.2024

 

Sunday 8.18.2024

 

Part IV (traditional Sunday Postscript)

1) “Talk to God and listen to his casual reply.” – John Denver (Rocky Mountain High).  There are entire websites dedicated to topics related to God, the Creator of the universe. There are television stations and networks whose primary focus is related to God, which often do news through the lens of belief in an all-powerful Creator of all things and people, be that from a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other religious tradition viewpoint. The founding founders thought that religious belief and morality were necessary for the U.S. Anyone who has taken a road trip and has channel surfed the radio knows there is religious broadcasting and music. Mainstream and even trade publications periodically deal with subjects related to Divinity that Muslims call Allah, and which the Hebrew Bible has numerous names and phrases to refer to the Supreme Being (examples: YHWH, Elohim, and Adonai, Shadday, Rofeh Olam, Ein-Sof, etc.).

2) In several branches of Judaism and Islam, to say that God is a Trinity of persons is considered blasphemous.

3) But Christian apologetics asserts in reply to those concerns examples from Jewish and Muslim scriptures that point to God as a trinity, three distinct personalities in one divine being. In MHVille, there are some platforms and people who occasionally raise the notion of God, typically in the Christian context. But given the pluralistic nature of American society, needless to say, there have been and are prominent- to everyday-individuals who believe in creation and think of life through an understanding grounded in Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or other belief systems. Sessions of Congress open with prayer, as left-leaning Wikipedia reminds us: “The chaplain of the United States House of Representatives is chosen to “perform ceremonial, symbolic, and pastoral duties”. These responsibilities include opening House sessions with a prayer or coordinating the delivery of the prayer by guest chaplains recommended by members of the House.”

So, it should not seem unusual that from time-to-time topics here or on MHLivingNews topics are explored through a spiritual lens.

4) Religious beliefs in contemporary society are still far more common than atheism or agnosticism, those being denials or doubts about the existence of God.

5) Perhaps because of some combination of upbringing, education, interest in history, and personal study, this writer has long believed that the existence of God is easily proven intellectually as well as experientially.

“I think, therefore I am” is usually translated from the Latin “Cogito ergo sum” from the work of French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. That was part of a more detailed philosophical or intellectual argument by Descartes, which Google’s AI named Gemini, said about the philosopher-mathematician the following.

“His most well-known argument is the ontological argument, which is often compared to a geometric demonstration.

The argument goes like this:

• Our idea of God is of a perfect being.
• It is more perfect to exist than not to exist.
• Therefore, God must exist.

Descartes also argued that as a finite being, he would not be able to create the idea of an infinite being, such as God. Therefore, the idea of God must be innate and placed in his mind by an infinite being, which means that an infinite being must exist to create the idea.”

 

6) While philosophers, believers, atheists, and agnostics debate that, this writer has long believed that evidence for faith is as close as our body. Mathematically, the odds against evolution being the answer to everything is astronomical. Indeed, it fails to explain what caused the so-called Big Bang. As hundreds of millions of children once learned, which came first, the chicken or the egg as an insightful look into why a Creator is necessary to understand our own existence, has been explored in articles like the Masthead editorial linked below. Teaser: even science now admits the chicken came first.

 

 

7) With one eye on the broader world, and the other on the diminished manufactured home industry, it is useful to ponder the meaning of a recent news item.

Al Jazeera had this headline:

What’s the big mystery behind the Shroud of Turin?

A recent study by Italian scientists finds the shroud does indeed date back to the time of Jesus Christ.

The New York Post has this headline in a report by Olivia Land, published Aug. 22, 2024.

Face of Jesus? AI recreates stunning likeness of Shroud of Turin image that many believe to be Christ

 

 

8) With that brief backdrop on the latest on the Shroud, from the WND News Center to MHProNews.

Documented: New evidence that Shroud of Turin dates to time of Jesus

Study concludes mysterious linen cloth, believed by many to be burial cloth, is 2,000 years old

But experts who worked on the study outlined by Heritage said the tests might have been flawed due to contamination of the tested material.

The report explained the newest details: “Such arguments revolving the contamination hypothesis have previously been challenged as well. In the Heritage study, lead researcher Liberato De Caro, from the Institute of Crystallography in Italy, and colleagues employed a novel method for dating ancient linen threads by inspecting their structural degradations using a technique known as Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering. This was applied to a small sample from the Shroud, which currently resides in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.”

The study said the results showed the cloth was “compatible” with results from other linens dating to about 55-74 A.D.

The report said since the results differ from the conclusions of earlier carbon-dating, more tests are needed.

WND columnist Jerry Newcombe this year reported on the cloth, 14 feet by 3 feet, that “contains the image of a man who was badly scourged, was crucified, wore a crown of thorns and was stabbed in the chest with a Roman lance. Of course, all of these wounds fit what the Bible says happened to Jesus. Is the Shroud of Turin Jesus’ actual ‘clean linen shroud‘ given to Him in death by Joseph of Arimathea?”

He reported at the time experts, like the late Alan Whanger, M.D., of Duke Medical Center, confirmed the Shroud is “the most intensely studied single object in existence. There are probably 67 different fields of scientific and academic interests that have looked into the Shroud in one way in another.”

Further, he confirmed it is scientific proof “something so extraordinary happened that there doesn’t seem to be anything else in human history that would fit.”

Newcombe also reported on a challenge:

“British filmmaker David Rolfe issued a million-dollar challenge: Make an accurate replica with the means available to a supposed Medieval forger, and you can win a million dollars.”

The deadline for that challenge already has passed.

It was The Shroud of Turin Research Project that already has confirmed the image “is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist.”

Further, the image is a photographic negative, 500 years before photography was developed.

Also, WND reported several years back that a researcher explained how the Carbon-14 dating used on the linen was faulty. The testing apparently used material that was used to repair the Shroud after a fire in the 16th century.

Those who suggest it is Jesus’ burial cloth have explained the image was embedded into the fibers by a process that has not yet been explained, possibly a surge of energy.

Matthew 27:57-60 records: “When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.”

The Shroud is a sepia-colored cloth woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils with the front and the back image of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin.

Other researchers have said there are bloodstains that came from someone who was suffering extreme injury and pain. ##

 

9) Jesus Himself encountered atheists and skeptics. Perhaps the most famous encounter is described in the Christian Gospels, which date back to the first century A.D. (Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord). Having been born into the world through a miraculous conception by the Virgin named Mary, Jesus grew up with his foster father Joseph and his mother, Mary (a.k.a. Miriam or Myriam). Jesus was a tekton, a Greek word for a tradesman who worked with wood and stone. That was the trade Joseph taught Jesus. Manufactured home professionals may find some sense of connection in the notion that Jesus built housing, home goods, and business-related items too.

 

 

10) Why does this matter? Isn’t it obvious?

If we think, we are. We exist.

If we are, we should know where we came from and why we are here! Yes, we were born as a result of steps taken by our parents. But in the broader sense, why did God create us – meaning humanity – in the first place?

Once God created us, why did He place us in a moral universe where right and wrong, good and evil exist? Those are the sorts of topics that faith seeks to answer.

 

 

11) Much of the supposed moral confusion of our time is due in large measure to the fact that not enough people bother to go back to such first principles of thought.

There are those who have gained prominence and power in global societies, who would rather see humanity confused, doubtful and disbelieving. They seem to want divisions, and sometimes have said as much. A divided society is easier to manipulate and rule than is a society that has moral clarity. President Trump launched an advisory commission to probe the questions about the meaning of our Republic.

 

 

12) The late Martin Luther King Jr. was a religious man. While it is fair to question what the precise nature of his religious beliefs were (some say he wasn’t a typical Baptist preacher but had more of a Jewish – as in non-Trinitarian – thread to his thinking). Be that as it may, MLK Jr was a thinker and a reader. In his famous letter from a Birmingham Alabama jail cell, he made remarks about the thinking of Thomas Aquinas, who was the medieval thinker who created an elaborate series of proofs for the existence of God.

MLK Jr. understood the significance of unifying people from a diverse background, across racial, religious, economic and political divides. King grasped that he had to work with people he did not agree with, that he even had to work with authentic racists, like President Lyndon Banes Johnson (D), who came into power after President John F. “Jack” Kennedy was assassinated.

 

 

 

 

13) It is no small thing that deposed President Donald J. Trump publicly promised to have a special commission on assassinations, one that would release all of the documents that are related to the assassination of Robert “Bobby” Kennedy Jr.’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and presumably his dad, Senator Robert “Bobby” Kennedy. It is unclear from the statement below if that committee will look into the assassination of MLK Jr., or the also slain civil rights leader Malcom X.

 

 

Why do these things matter? Plenty of good reasons.

14) To better understand the present, we must understand the past. Our world view and our behaviors are forged in part by our beliefs and our understanding of reality. While this platform editorially disagrees with Rep. James Clyburn on several topics, he is arguably spot on in his emphasis on the importance of history for understanding our times and charting a course for the future.

 

 

15) If someone’s understanding of reality is flawed, it becomes easier to manipulate a person or group of people.

 

16) The oligarchs that seek to rule our society, people like Warren Buffett, William “Bill” Gates III, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Fink and their ilk, know that a divided society is easier to manipulate and thus “rule.” Let’s be clear. Those who are godless in their behaviors, if not their beliefs, are often highly intelligent people. An evidence-based case can be made that a constitutional Republic is not convenient for their purposes.

That’s why Buffett and Munger have long meddled in politics, religion, moral and legal issues like abortion. Buffett has not hidden his claimed stance for atheism. Once someone has large amounts of money or power, they often want more money and power. Buffett’s so-called philanthropy, per his own son Peter, is a tool to advance his own agenda.

 

 

17) When Michelle Obama addressed the DNC last week, she lectured millions of people in an arguably hypocritical fashion about people who have too much (see weekly recap above). The Obamas have purchased three properties that many if not most would call mansions. The take private jets. They have government security via the Secret Service. They don’t want our nation to have border walls, but they themselves have walls around their property in a Washington, D.C. suburb. They are thus demonstrably open hypocrites of the first order. They are protected by men with guns, but they want to limit or eliminate your rights, and mine, to own a gun. They lecture about climate change, and the rising of the oceans, but they have two ocean front properties on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There is an evidence-based case to be made that they are first class liars, con artists, and frauds.

Who says?

The Obamas are Democrats. Democratic President Harry S. Truman said this. Apply that to the Obamas, the Clinton, and apparently to the Bidens too.

 

 

 

Once more, let’s be clear. Someone can be a Democrat and not be corrupt. Someone can be a Republican and not be corrupt. But the fact that there are corrupt Democrats and Republicans are simply a matter of historical facts and evidence. We don’t have to wait longer before we look with open eyes that the Obamas were thrust into power by the financially powerful. He was their proxy. Don’t just look at the man in front of the curtain, look at those behind the curtain that put him there. Much of this is visible.

 

 

18) If Joe Biden is corrupt, and there are hundreds of pages of documents that indicate that he is, then clearly the Obamas and Kamala Harris can hardly be exempted from corruption concerns too.

 

19) Whatever beliefs or background you have been do not have to define you the rest of your life.

Malcolm X evolved as a person and in his beliefs. Positions he once held strongly, and individuals that he once respected, he later realized were not what he once thought.

 

 

20) We at MHProNews have never said that Trump is a saint. He’s not. But he apparently has a deep love for this country and people of whatever background. Some of the arguments used against Trump are easily debunked, racism and antisemitism being among them. Trump’s daughter Ivanka is Jewish. His son in law Jared Kushner is Jewish. Kushner played an important role in obtaining the Abraham Accords. The fact that some project onto Trump claims of racism and antisemitism is absurd. Recall that Trump is the only president in decades that left office worth substantially less than when he entered office. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama were all worth more after leaving the presidency than when they entered. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Joe Biden leaves the White House worth more than when he entered it. The historian Colin D. Heaton has called Trump one of the least corrupt presidents in U.S. history. They are using one of the older tricks: they accuse their opponent of doing what they themselves are guilty of doing.

 

 

21) Let’s repeat that: they accuse their opponents of doing what they themselves are guilty of doing.

In Hungarian (Magyar), there is an expression for that: “Az aki mondta, te mondtad, te vagy.” Roughly translated, it means ‘The one making the accusation is the one who did it,’ i.e.: the deed.

Meaning this is an international phenomenon. The U.S. State Department website has this statement: “There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit.” Quite so.

22) The late Rush Limbaugh shed light on Trump well before he died.

 

23) Jesus is misunderstood because people haven’t taken the time to understand Him. Nor have millions spent sufficient time reflecting on this. God does not need us. He pre-existed all people and things. If God made intelligent life on other planets, the Creator preexisted them too.

God gave humans free will. We have freedom to choose right from wrong. We have freedom to read or not read. We have freedom to listen or not listen.  Freedom to see or not to see.

24) You don’t have to be Catholic or Christian to realize that Joe Biden is a fraud. You don’t have to be Catholic to realize that Bill Gates isn’t much of a Catholic, just like you don’t have to be Jewish to realize that Senators Bernie Sanders (VT-DS) and Chuck Schumer (NY-D) or George and Alex Soros are pretty poor in spirit and behavior Jews. That doesn’t mean that Barack, Bernie, Joe, Chuck, George, Alex, or Bill don’t have interesting thoughts or deeds. They do. But their deeds merit as much, if not more attention, than their words.

25) All of us have some degree of hypocrisy. None of us are perfect. That’s why we need redeeming. That’s why we need a good dose of humility. But we also need a solid dose of backbone in order to do what is necessary in our time to avoid spiraling down into a very troubling possible future.

 

 

25) With modern AI, censorship tools, and a vast arsenal of propaganda available, we could very well be living in the dystopian worlds of George Orwell and Aldus Huxley.

 

 

26) To some degree, we already are living in that nightmare. Some were born into it. Some were taught misinformation from their youth. Don’t blame mom or dad if they were propagandized. Blame a corrupted system instead.

27) From time to time, MHProNews has featured the writer Hanne Nabintu Herland. She is a South African born Christian who moved to Norway. She is a historian who connects the dots between cultural, religious, political, economic, and other events. She said it well when she said we are living in a billionaire’s world which oddly uses Marxist-Socialist and even Communists to advance their own interests. She has an indirect interest in the U.S., because like it or not, ours is one of the most powerful and influential societies in human history.

 

28) Herland, an outsider to the U.S. looking in, has said that America needs Trump. She is no doubt aware of his womanizing or other moral shortcomings. But God chose David to be His ruler and messenger even though David did some pretty horrible or curious things, including having a harem of women that might make Trump blush, and arranging for the death of husband of the mother of David’s son. Don’t think for a second that God lacks a sense of humor.

29) We opened this postscript with a line from John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. Perhaps Denver was smoking something funny. Be that as it may, there are times we can “Talk to God a listen to His casual reply.”

God knew where to put you and me in the timeline of history. God does not need us, we need Him. That said, in his plan for humanity and salvation, God has always utilized imperfect people, who have free will, to do ordinary and extraordinary things.

30) If you vote for Harris-Walz, that’s your right. But Harris-Walz is just the latest set of faces in the Biden-Harris and Obama-Biden line. Please. For your own sake, and that of your family and loved ones, don’t fall for that trick. Study why millions are walking away from the Democratic plantation.

 

 

 

31) When enough blacks, Hispanics, left-leaning whites, Asians, and people from the full array of America’s rich tapestry recognize that the Democratic party has long been the party of racism, a major step toward truly healing our nation can occur.

 

 

32) When more veterans look at the history of warfare in the 20th and 21st century, they will see why Kennedy and Trump both oppose the military industrial spy complex.

 

 

33) As an award-winning student of history, this writer will mention Colin D. Heaton’s video series, Forgotten History. Instead of watching a 30 minute whatever on television, take one video a day and watch it. To be clear, some of these are not exciting in the sense of a bang-bang shoot-em-up action-adventure movie. These are interesting insights into America, and at times, other countries too. Not having watched them all, I can’t give a blanket endorsement, but I can say that what I’ve seen holds up well. That’s said to make this point. Heaton’s video series reveals several historic items that are often covered up and misunderstood. A year from now, those who take that advice and watch a few a week will understand their world much better than then do today.

34) As over a decade of our sourcing and reporting makes clear, we have long dug deeply into left-leaning sources. That said, it is at least as important to see what the right has to say. Among the suggestions on that point? Tune in to WMAL’s radio line up. At the end of a few months of listening, it will be surprising too many to see how differently one may see the world. That said, for those on the right, it is useful to watch the largely left-leaning productions below.

 

 

 

35) There is evidence from the left- and right that America is being steadily undermined from within. That applies to our industry too.  To stop this steady march, we must see things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Wishing is a not a plan. Understanding followed by action is the path to a good plan. Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris and their party have run America for roughly 12 of the past 16 years. If someone wants to blame what has gone wrong on a party, it would obviously be the Democrats. When did things begin to improve for a few years? Under Trump.  Who says? Largely anti-Trump CNN.

 

 

 

36) As political independents raised in a pro-Kennedy Democrat era, we see that this rapidly approaching election will come down to a choice between Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance. As Colin Heaton’s video on Trump said, Trump was fine by Democrats until he started questioning the policies of Obama-Biden and then threw in with Republicans in the 2015-2016 campaign. He went from a Hollywood Walk of fame star to becoming a racist, misogynist, and antisemite overnight. Amazing how that happens, isn’t it? But that and more just happens to be disproven. But so long as some spin one lie, half-truth, and carefully (meaning improperly) edited video after another, it is easy to turn Trump or any other person into something that they aren’t.

37) The clock is ticking down on the 2024 election. Be ready to vote wisely. And share what you learn with your circle of friends. Tell them that a few hours of reading and viewing may make them see their world totally different than they do before they start. The alternative is more bleak results for the vast majority of the American people. Study with care. Share what you learn with others. Act accordingly. Vote wisely. God didn’t make a mistake when the Creator put you and us in this time in history. Open eyes with solid information and proper action can help set millions free.  ###

 

 

 

 

Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)

By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.

Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.

For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.

This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.

http://latonykovach.com

Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach

 

 

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