James A. Schmitz Jr., Arilton Teixeira, and Mark L. J. Wright, published and provided the power point slide presentation that follows as one of the references in a 2020 published Minneapolis Federal Reserve report on the harm caused by monopolistic practices. The Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright trio cite classic antitrust (i.e.: antimonopoly) arguments deemed “Sabotaging-Monopoly” practices. While mentioning the harm caused, for example, in the dental and oral health fields, they and Schmitz Jr spend significant time in pointing the finger directly at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and builders for sabotaging the manufactured housing industry.

The excerpts from the PowerPoint by Schmitz¹, Teixeira², and Wright³ that follows were “Prepared for a Conference Creating Edward Prescott Fellowship.” Their titles and affiliations are as follows.

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

There are aspects of the trios report that may merit refinement in the light of specific and keen manufactured housing industry insider insights. Specific terminology they used is part of the issue. That is noted as a placeholder for newcomers as well as to longtime readers here, and they will be addressed later.

That said, the thrust of Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright PowerPoint and related research substantially supports concerns raised by years of research and allegations published by Mobile and Manufactured Home Living News (MHLivingNews), Manufactured Home Pro News (MHProNews), the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR), as well as that of Sam Strommen at Knudson Law, along with others inside and outside of manufactured housing who have raised similar concerns that broad fit their contention.

Numerous pull quotes from their academic-style work follow, which will include their PowerPoint at the end, along with additional information, more MHProNews analysis and commentary.

But near the heart of this should be the notion that they are presenting their case for what they called the historic ‘Arnold-Simons Model of a Sabotaging-Monopoly.’ Much that they said should cause industry professionals, investors, affordable housing and manufactured home advocates, nonprofits, public officials, media and others to lean in and look more closely at the harm that they argue has been 0 and continues to be – inflicted on millions of Americans, including minorities and others with low to moderate income. Because of how the economic and political structure functions today, taxpayers and the public at large are also impacted by several of the specific and broader pattern the trio have described.

Because these pull quotes are from a slide presentation, they do not have punctuation, which is an acceptable practice in such PowerPoints used for an audience. The photo collage below is taken from their presentation, but is used out of their original sequence.

 

History: Monopolies HUD, Builders Sabotage Factory-Built Industry

 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

 (Slide 2 of 80)

 

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.

(Slide 3 of 80)

MHProNews Note: This dovetails with prior research by then Harvard Joint School of Housing Studies fellow Eric Belsky. Dr. Belsky was Managing Director of Harvard’s JCHS before accepting an appointment to the Federal Reserve. See examples of Belsky’s similar and related thoughts linked here and here. Returning to the Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright presentation.

 

History: Monopolies (HUD…) 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”

(Slide 4/80)

 

History: How Monopolies Sabotage Factory Producers I:

• In the late 1960s, HUD introduces massive subsidies
• Those purchasing stick-built homes can receive mortgages as low as 1%
• Purchasers of factory-built homes not eligible
• In early 1970s, each year more than 400,000 stick-built homes purchased with subsidies

(Slide 5/80)

 

History: How Monopolies Sabotage Factory Producers: II

• HUD introduced national building code for factory producers
• HUD code had strict energy, fire requirements
• In the areas where factory producers competed with traditional (stick) industry, HUD code much stronger than local code. Many local areas had no building code!
• So factory producers put at tremendous disadvantage

(Slide 6/80)

MHProNews Note: This arguably merits additional nuance, see Danny Ghorbani’s historic snapshots linked here. But with some additional insider insights, the thrust of the above are substantially on point. Returning to their presentation.

 

History: How Monopolies Sabotage Factory Producers: III

• HUD code had features that were simply to sabotage
• Some factory-built homes were required to have a permanent chassis attached to their bottoms (see pictures below)

(Slide 7/80)

MHProNews Note: here, the Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright presenters have made an important point, one that too many in the manufactured housing industry profession are unaware of today. Once more, insider insights could fine tune this pointed claim. In Ghorbani’s discussions with MHProNews with respect to our historic interview series, Ghorbani has repeatedly mentioned a point that has not yet been covered in a specific drill down. Namely, how “the permanent chassis” on HUD Code manufactured homes was used to limit and hobble manufactured housing growth. That merits more detail another time. But once more, the thrust of the researchers statements are arguably correct.

 

History: How Monopolies Sabotage Factory

Producers: IV

• HUD building code acts as national zoning ordinance
• Because HUD code required permanent chassis, this impacted how factory-built homes were treated in local zoning ordinances across the country. Led to their exclusion.

(8/80)

History: How Monopolies Sabotaged Industry

• The history just summarized was difficult to figure out
• Monopolies produced lots of misinformation to confuse/cover up their sabotage
• In fact, this history of sabotage is not known!

(9/80)

 

MHProNews Note: while it would be apt to say that this history is not generally well known, there are clearly some who do know it. Ghorbani would be one. Dick Moore, who has been interviewed by Inside MH for MHLivingNews clearly lived through this period and would have knowledge of his own. Several sources have spoken to MHProNews and/or have been discovered through research that confirm the claims that “The history just summarized was difficult to figure out” and that “Monopolies produced lots of misinformation to confuse/cover up their sabotage.” Those points noted, the claim that the monopolies “produced lots of produced lots of misinformation to confuse/cover up their sabotage,” is spot on.

It bears mention that Knudson Law legal researcher Strommen also noted how difficult it was to find accurate information about manufactured housing.  More on that in our additional analysis further below. Returning to their slides.

 

History: Consequences of Sabotage

• Housing costs = cost of structure + cost of land
• In most locations, cost of structure makes up a very large share of housing costs
• Factory production dramatically reduces structure cost
• Hence, using factory-built homes would reduce housing costs by 2/3 and more, greatly easing housing crisis

(10/80)

Outline: Sections

(1) Define housing crisis

(2) Discuss what we mean by “monopoly”

• Standard monopoly (Cournot monopoly): raises prices
• Henry Simons, Thurman Arnold’s monopoly: sabotages rivals
• In process of enriching themselves, monopolies destroy rivals, typically those producing goods for low-income Americans
• Economists use Cournot model to estimate costs of monopoly, completely missing sabotage and its huge costs

(11/80)

 

Outline

(3) Terminology

(4) Statistics on factory production

(5) Benefits of factory production

(6) Monopoly blocking of factory production: Overview

(7) History of monopolies blocking modular [3+]

(8) History blocking modular [1&2] (modular [1&2] homes)

(12/80)

 

MHProNews Note: the definition of “modular” used by the authors is both apt and yet technically errant. As seasoned manufactured home industry professionals routinely know, a HUD Code manufactured home is a technical and legal term. It is a specific type of factory building. True modular construction is state coded. HUD Code manufactured homes, as the author’s recognized, is a distinctive code administered by HUD. For several reasons, the authors would be advised to use the proper terms because it will strengthen their contention and have the benefit of being legally and technically accurate. That noted, manufactured homes could be described as being built in modules or sections.  More on that further below.

Returning to their presentation.

 

Outline

(9) Factory-built housing industry fights back, to no avail

(10) What is the cost of monopoly?

(11) Conclusion: What to do?

(13/80)

 

The trio of researchers then go through the 11 points above. MHProNews will skip ahead, noting anew that the entire presentation is available further below..

 

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

(16/80)

 

MHProNews Note: this fits this new  report and analysis about HUD linked here and others like it. It substantially makes several of the same claims Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright made in their presentation.

 

Defining Crisis from Household Perspective

• Recent study of lifetime incidence of homelessness (Fusaro, Levy, Shaefer 2018)
• Non-hispanic blacks: 16.8%
• Over their lifetime, nearly one in five blacks will experience homelessness

(17/80)

 

Housing Crisis from Industry Perspective

An industry faces a crisis if:

• The industry blocks new technology
• The industry is a productivity laggard
• The industry is overrun with monopolies

(18/80)

We Use Industry Definition

• The housing construction industry is in crisis
• Recent BLS estimates:
• Looking over the last 30 years, they find no labor
• productivity growth in single-family home construction
• In prior decades, productivity growth was negative (though
• quality of data not as good)

(19/80)

 

Defining Monopoly

• To study monopoly: need theory/model
• For the last 50 years, economics profession uses the
• Cournot-model of monopoly (and the Cournot-model of
• oligopoly)
• Before World War II, a very different model used

(21/80)

 

Standard Model of Monopoly (Cournot-Model)

• Learn this in first-year economic courses
• A monopoly is:
• A single firm controlling a market
• Run by an entrepreneur
• Decides how much to raise price

(22/80)

 

Standard Model of Duopoly as Well

• A duopoly is:
• Two firms controlling a market
• Each run by an entrepreneur
• Each decides how much to raise (his/her) price
• Model of oligopoly is the same

(23/80)

 

MHProNews note: by the terms of monopoly, duopoly, and oligopoly used herein by the presenters, manufactured housing arguably exhibits monopoly and oligopoly. See Samuel Strommen’s Knudson Law research, linked here. Now, returning to their presentation.

 

 New Model of Monopoly (Holmes & Schmitz 1995, 2001;

Schmitz 2012, 2016, 2019)

• Monopolies are GROUPS of individuals that organize themselves into concentrations of power to enrich themselves
• In doing so, they often destroy substitutes for their monopoly products. These substitutes are typically low-cost alternatives for the monopoly product, substitutes that would have been purchased by poor Americans.

(24/80)

 

New Model of Monopoly, continued

 1– Holmes, Thomas J., and James A. Schmitz, Jr. “Resistance to New

Technology and Trade between Areas.” Federal Reserve Bank of

Minneapolis Quarterly Review 19.1 (1995): 2-17.

 

2 —-. “A Gain from Trade: From Unproductive to Productive

Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Monetary Economics 47.2 (2001): 417-446.

 

3 — Schmitz Jr, James A. “New and Larger Costs of Monopoly and Taris.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department 468 (July 2012).

 

4 —-. “The Costs of Monopoly: A New View.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Region (July 2016).

 

5 —-. “Monopolies Inflict Great Harm on Poor Americans.” (2019).

(25/80)

 

New Model of Monopoly Is Really an Old Model

• Model in Holmes and Schmitz (1995, 2001) and Schmitz (2012, 2016, 2019) was standard model before Cournot model [was] embraced in 1950s.
• It was standard for economists and general public
• Monopolies:
• Are groups of people, who organize themselves into concentrations of power to enrich themselves
• Raise price
• But, importantly, destroy rivals and sabotage the system

(26/80)

 

Henry Simons, Thurman Arnold Among Those Developing This Model

• Simons was a professor at University of Chicago and considered a leader of that great department of 1930s (along with Frank Knight and Jacob Viner)
• Arnold was Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust in DoJ for FDR, serving 1938-43

(27/80)

 

MHProNews Note: in our previous report on a related topic explored the influence of antitrust legal expert Barak Y. Orbach, J.D., who in turn critiqued and ‘ripped’ Robert Bork, J.D., and his problematic influence on later 20^th century antitrust thought. For example, in an article entitled HOW ANTITRUST LOST ITS GOAL, Orbach explains his well-documented contention, that he sums up like this:

“The Essay [How Antitrust Lost Its Goal] concludes with a straightforward observation: “consumer welfare” may continue serving as the stated goal of U.S. competition laws but, practically, antitrust has always been and will always be about the preservation of competition.” That MHProNews report and analysis is found at this link below. This is NOT in their report, but arguably supports the thrust of their contentions.

 

Saturday Satire and Executive Summaries for Manufactured Housing Professionals, Investors, Advocates, Researchers, Public Officials, and Investigators

 

Note that an upcoming report will examine some additional and related information from the trio and Schmitz in the near term in a follow up report. But first, this pull quote they cited:

Henry Simons, Positive Program for Laissez Faire, Monopolies “possess tremendous power for exploiting the community at large and even for sabotaging the system.”

Now, jumping ahead and returning to Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright slide presentation.

 

SECTION 5: Benefits of Factory Production

 Unrecognized but Extremely Important Benefit

• Because factory workers are semi-skilled, they can be trained in a few weeks.
• Training of highly skilled workers in stick production (like carpenters) obviously requires years rather than weeks.
• Makes recovery from prolonged housing construction recession particularly difficult, as many workers have left the industry.

(Slide 49 & 50/80)

MHProNews Notes: financing subsidies supported by HUD for conventional builders was another method used to sabotage manufactured homes, said the Schmitz, Teixeira, Wright researchers/presenters.

Note that the researchers used the term manufactured homes in their definition of factory built housing and modular housing. As noted at the top, some of what they wrote merits refinement. Such a refinement would arguably strengthen their thesis, not weaken it. For instance:

 

 

Those items noted, returning again to their presentation and thesis.

 

Factory-Produced Homes Blocked for 100 Years

•  Before WWII, monopolies blocked modular [3+], panelized
• Who blocked? Perfect storm: those blocking include
• Small builders, craft unions, specialized building material producers, building code inspectors, local politicians who were supported by these groups
• Coalitions among these groups were typically too much for factory producers to fight

(Slide 53/80)

 

On slide 55, the trio stated: “Thurman Arnold continues his arguments that monopolies block low-cost housing” in the post-World War II era. Part of the consequence for that? Increased homelessness. They illustrated that in part with this screen capture from Look Magazine.

 

MHProNews note: especially for new readers, it merits stressing that the term modular here is their usage, and more aptly should be factory built homes in the years covered. That noted, returning to their thesis.

 

Blocking of Modular [1&2] Homes, 1950-68, Methods

• Linking modular [1&2] homes with trailers
• Trailers were primitive shelters that were used by poor families seeking work during the Great Depression. Towed these shelters from town to town.
• Shelters were banned from many localities
• Small builders joined with local zoning boards to claim modular [1&2] homes were trailers
• Modular [1&2] homes are not trailers but tactic successful

(Slide 60/80)

 

MHProNews Note: next below, it should be mentioned again for precision that the writers used the term “modular” to include what today would be termed “manufactured homes” or “HUD Code manufactured homes.” Technically, modular homes that are state coded can be placed in many of the same locales that conventional buildings are. But modular homes are also more costly than HUD Code manufactured homes. Some modular homes are moved on a removable chassis, others on a different carrier, some mods are what have been dubbed ‘HUDulars’ where the modular coded unit is built on a permanent chassis. It is for technical reasons such as these that precision in the language is useful. That noted, returning to their important and relevant thesis.

 

Blocking of Modular [1&2] Homes, 1974-Present, HUD Code

• HUD instrumental in passing legislation creating national building code for modular [1&2] homes, HUD code
• Very strict energy and fire provisions
• Code treated modular [1&2] homes like vehicles
• Modular [1&2] homes required to have permanent chassis

(Slide 62/80)

 

Note here that in interviews with Danny Ghorbani, he explained from an industry insider perspective how his association – what today is known as the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) which he was the founding president and CEO of – fought to get a removable chassis on HUD Code manufactured homes. More on that another time. But based on our interactions with him, it may be safe to say that Ghorbani – an engineer by training – would hold to much of the thrust of their thesis.

 

 

Impacts of HUD Code: Increase Production Costs

• Energy code stricter than most local codes
• Fire code is similar
• Permanent chassis obviously adds production cost

(Slide 65/80)

 

Because of the permanent chassis, “Similarly, costs of placing home on foundation increase” said researchers Schmitz, Teixeira, and Wright (slide 66).

“Impacts of HUD Code: Increases Financing Costs, the trio wrote.” (slide 67). That makes points that have been stressed by MHARR’s research and advocacy for years.

 

Their instructional slide presentation then makes the point “Impacts of HUD Code: Acts as National Zoning Ordinance” which causes homes to be “zoned out” (slide 68) in much of the nation, perhaps more than they realize. All of that once more goes to the heart of contentions long stated by MHARR, MHProNews, MHLivingNews, and periodically by other researchers too.

They continued (Slide 71-73/80):

 

SECTION 10:

What Is the Cost of These Monopolies?

Two Types of Costs

• Costs to overall society
• Costs disproportionately hurting poor

 

Costs to Society I: Losses from Slow Recoveries

• By using stick production methods, a severe downturn (like 2008) leads to a very long recovery
• What Are Costs to Low-Income of not Allowing Factory Production?
• Losses associated with more expensive housing (renting)
• Losses from elimination of “inexpensive” homes (home ownership thought to be important)

(Slide 75/80)

Losses from More Expensive Housing

• Homelessness, eviction related to high housing costs
• Low-income spend lots of time trying to avoid eviction, spend time searching for housing if eviction looks probable, not to mention time use if evicted/homeless
• Cheaper housing alleviates some of these problems

(Slide 76/80)

 

What Are the Losses from Elimination of “Lower-End” Homes?

• Saving to buy $200,000 home very different from $50,000
• If allow factory-built homes, home ownership of low-income will increase
• Wealth will increase

(Slide 78/80)

 

Conclusion: Monopolies Cause “Crises” in Many Industries

• “Dental crisis” result of monopolies blocking non-dental professionals
• “Housing crisis” result of monopolies in construction sabotaging factory-built housing, which low-income Americans could a ord
• “Legal crisis” experienced by the poor results from lawyers blocking independent practice of paralegals
• OEM (cars, farm equipment) try to squash independent repair industry (org)
• Schmitz, Teixeira, Wright

(Slide 80/80)

 

Note that their work contains the rather standard disclaimer that “The views presented are the Authors’ only and do not represent the views of the Federal Reserve System.” ##

Their full PowerPoint is found as a download from this link here. While there are stylistic, terminology, or other distinctions, their research plows significant ground on how m0nopolies are harmful in general, and how they have harmed manufactured home industry, competitors to the building giants, and consumers at large too.

 

Additional Information, more MHProNews Analysis and Commentary

The terminology and related noted above once more mentioned, the number of salient points and relevant facts these third-party researchers have brought to the surface is impressive. The timing of the Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright research could hardly be better. As their closing slide makes clear, while this problem of “sabotage monopoly” impacts HUD Code manufactured homes, several other industries are likewise impacted. MHProNews – citing other researchers – have made similar points, but without using that useful, colorful, and apt term.

“Sabotage monopoly” tactics are arguably supported by what has been called the Iron Triangle. See that report, linked below.

 

 

To further bolster their thesis, and without naming any name(s) at this time, MHProNews has been told that the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) purportedly employed a professional with clear ties to conventional builders. That tends to fit Schmidt and his colleague’s contentions that conventional builders – i.e. represented by the NAHB – are operating in a fashion that undermines manufactured housing. That undermining, in that instance, is not only from the outside, but also from within the industry itself. That too fits numerous statements over the years by Mark Weiss, J.D., current president and CEO of MHARR, but also those of his predecessor, Danny Ghorbani.

 

 

 

Additionally, Lesli Gooch, CEO of MHI, has had documented allegations of conflicts of interest aimed in her direction by an apparent insider. Those documents are clearly tied to the interests of conventional housing.

 

 

The documents in that exposé linked above were sent anonymously, fueling speculation that the tipster may have been a possible rival for her job title, perhaps such as Mark Bowersox, MHI’s President. Infighting at MHI is hardly new to longtime readers here.

 

 

Furthermore, Gooch and MHI have been oddly arguing touting their work in support of a “coalition” of mostly conventional housing nonprofit groups. As Ghorbani has argued, the coalition – properly understood – is an embarrassment to the manufactured home industry, not something to brag about.  The trio’s take on that might be interesting.

 

Furthermore, as MHProNews has previously reported several times, Clayton Homes began making acquisitions of conventional builders in conventional housing. The pull quote below from Kevin Clayton’s interview with CNBC, a favored network for Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway, may also be revealing.

 

 

 

The presence on Berkshire’s board of an NBC/Universal personality makes the stagecraft involved all the more interesting.

 

 

The Enhanced Preemption Puzzle Piece

As a disclosure, MHProNews only came across the work of these researchers in the middle of the night. Our plan for today’s first report shifted, because their work merits the attention AND because it fits so many of the growing needs of our nation. These various needs are often connected in the background to “sabotage monopolies” in operating in other segments of the U.S. economy.

It is not yet known if the trio has mentioned Enhanced Preemption in their work, but it is not present in this particular slide presentation.

That noted, what makes the current status quo of manufactured housing all the more nefarious – and which further underscores the thesis of Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright is precisely the notion of enhanced preemption. As longtime, detail-minded readers of MHProNews know, enhanced preemption was made law by the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA or 2000 Reform Law).

 

 

Additionally, more market-based financing should – on paper – be available through HUD/FHA via the Title I and Title II manufactured home loan programs. But both of those are operating at minimal levels. Why? Are those too examples of sabotage capitalism that benefits the Berkshire brands and a few others that work in collusion with them?

Even if they are not yet aware of the 2000 Reform law, their point about HUD sabotaging manufactured housing has obliquely been made by MHI award winner Marty Lavin. Lavin has contended that the HUD Code has been turned on its head and weaponized against the interests of the industry, and against the clear intention of the law.

 

 

But Lavin is hardly alone. Several Democratic lawmakers addressed in 2003 their concerns directly with HUD. See that linked here and examined in the context of others reports linked herein above and below.

All of the above arguably fits their trio’s research in their overall thesis of how contemporary “sabotage monopolies” work in manufactured housing.

 

 

Summary and Conclusion

A single colorful phrase can sometimes shed a bright line distinction that can make it easier for antitrust professionals, attorneys, affordable housing advocates, and others to see something that was previously obscured. “Sabotage monopoly” is such a phrase.

The historic snapshot that Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright research provided – while they honorably admitted in their presentation that it has gaps – those gaps can readily be filled. Their “gap” arguably does not change any of their thesis.

Indeed, the additional information in this report and those linked from it, along with the seminal research by Sam Strommen, linked below, only strengthens their thrust of their thesis.

The crisis in American society – economically, politically, socially and otherwise – can often be traced back to monopolists.

Those monopolists neatly fit their historic definitions.

While it merits more research, it would not be a surprise to learn if monopolists were behind the changes that occurred in institutions of higher learning, as well as in the legal profession with respect to the harmful impact of monopolies on our society and political process.

 

 

If it is not already clear, at this stage of our probe into their research, MHProNews commends their efforts and would also note that fellow Minneapolis Fed Researcher Donna Feir, Ph.D., also noted tangentially how the Clayton-Berkshire business moat – which she referenced via a footnote in her research – was harming the interests of minorities.

 

 

The purportedly treacherous ways that nonprofits are deployed in manufactured housing to obscure interest and the truth – in a manner that builds the Buffett-Berkshire-Clayton moat – is examined in the reports linked above and below.

 

 

But to the point made by Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright of the economic and social harms caused by these issues, that could be placed in the trillions of dollars, per economic research published late in the Obama-Biden administration.

 

 

 

 

These issues should not be viewed through a partisan lens, as members of both major parties have at various times pointed out various things that support the Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright contentions. For instance, with respect to how more affordable housing would benefit minorities and others with low income, ponder the quote from former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, shown below.

 

 

Once more, that only supports the claims of by Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright, even if they were not previously aware of that specific statement. That goes to one of the more relevant takeaways from their work. It is this. The words in brackets are added by MHProNews.

 

“How Monopolies Sabotaged Industry

• The history just summarized was difficult to figure out
• Monopolies produced lots of misinformation to confuse/cover up their sabotage
• In fact, this [much of this] history of sabotage is not known!”

That could be summed up by this quote from Danny Glover, which MHProNews has used to highlight the ways that nonprofits have been deployed as part of the purported Castle and Moat of Warren Buffett and his brands.

 

Strommen also told MHProNews – and it is in his research paper – how difficult it is to find useful research. Is that an accident? Or is that rather by decision and design? Because information control is part of the monopoly control.  Creating misinformation – which Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright, MHProNews, MHLivingNews and others have contended – only fuels the “moat” which acts as a barrier for entry, persistence and exit.

 

• Zoning/Placement
• Unfortunate, Underserved Image and Obscured Information
• Financing

These are some of the tactics that Schmitz-Teixeira-Wright spotlighted in their historic “sabotage monopolies” thesis.

 

There is much more that could be said and unpacked from the trio’s important research that years of MHProNews research has produced. MHProNews will, as noted, return to their work in the near term and will include additional related insights. Those will arguably further support the thrust of their contentions of the problems associated with “sabotage monopolies.” For now, to learn more from the MHVille side of the equation, see the linked reports.

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more of what is ‘behind the curtains’ as well as what is obvious and in your face reports. It is all here, at the runaway largest and most-read source for authentic manufactured home “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

 

Related References:

The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.