Martin Gilbert, the outgoing vice chair of British investment company Standard Life Aberdeen, told CNBC that “The biggest problem that the people I meet here have — the investors who give money to us — is ‘where do we put our money?’ And that is the big issue they all have.”
That same CNBC report stated that the investment world has been dogged by sluggish growth and low interest rates. Bond yields have dipped. Some believe that the strongest gains in equities have already been made. Meanwhile, on Monday, the International Monetary Fund forecast a global growth rate of 2.9% for 2019 and of 3.3% for 2020. That was a reduction in their prior estimates.
Gilbert said that the current trends are for large funds and high-net worth investors to move out of public markets and into private markets. There is a global capital swing of about 5% already underway.
Housing and infrastructure were places that capital is trending toward, he said.
In a separate report that cited the left-of-center Oxfam’s most recent report claims that the world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth held among them than the combined net worth of some 4.6 billion people.
It singled out Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as currently the richest person in the world, according to Forbes, with a net worth of around $116.4 billion. The second wealthiest person on the planet is Bernard Arnault, a French billionaire who owns luxury goods group LVMH and has a net worth of $116 billion. Arnault has been rising in the past year, moving beyond Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in the top 4 ultra-billionaires.
Oxfam’s report included a plea that could have been tailor-made for Senators Bernie Sanders (VT-I and self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist) or Elizabeth Warren (MA-D), both 2020 presidential hopefuls who will find themselves in Washington, D.C. today instead of stumping for votes.
“Extreme wealth is a sign of a failing economic system,” Oxfam’s report said, as CNBC related. “Governments must take steps to radically reduce the gap between the rich and the rest of society and prioritize the wellbeing of all citizens over unsustainable growth and profit.” The solution they proposed was a tax on the world’s wealthiest citizens.
That’s oddly similar to proposals that Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and others have made too. ‘Tax the rich’ sounds good, perhaps especially so when coming from the wealthiest lips.
But billionaire Nick Hanauer, who has done business with Gates and Bezos, says to his fellow billionaires that the pitchforks and/or police states are coming if there is a failure to act. However, for those who ponder the details might note, that speech has been made at venues like Ted Talks or in columns like the one in Politico. Are those audiences made up of billionaires? Hardly. Much of what is said at such times is best understood as head fakes to placate others.
As Carol Roth has noted, some of the ‘solutions’ proposed – like more regulations – benefits the bigger firms at the expense of smaller ones.
Higher taxes, properly understood, are routinely passed onto consumers of the goods and services that are provided by the big corporations so many billionaires own. What sounds like ‘solutions’ are thinly veiled barriers.
Barriers to Entry, Persistence, and Exiting in Business, Affordable Housing, and Manufactured Homes
Issues like race relations, sexism, homophobia or religious differences are routinely exploited by those who hold power. However well-meaning or nice sounding some politicians plans may sound, the reality is that their ‘solutions’ are often illusions. Who says? Among Democrats, other Democrats like former Colorado Governor John W. Hickenlooper Jr., or former Congressman and businessman John Delaney. Hickenlooper said before dropping out of the 2020 run for the White House that far left plans would effectively “FedEx the election” to President Donald J. Trump. Delaney has called far left policies espoused by voices like Sanders and Warren as “fairytale economics” that make promises that can’t be delivered.
After the last 2020 Democratic Debate, CNN commentator Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones and fellow Democrat Al Sharpton both said similar things. They lamented that they didn’t see anyone on that stage that could beat President Trump in the fall of 2020. Filmmaker and left-wing activist Michael Moore – who loathes the current president – said that the January 14 debate would signal the date that Donald Trump effectively won reelection.
CNN political analyst and Democratic strategist Angela Rye thinks the rift in the party and the current field are a problem for her party.
While proponents stress that there are more donations from more people coming into Democratic coffers than to those of the GOP and their party’s leader, President Trump, declining numbers of viewers from the first debate may indicate a warning for the political left.
Making Money by Doing Good?
MHProNews’ unique analysis of carefully curated information condenses what’s occurring in investing and politics. It often points toward a surprising potential opportunity here in the U.S. The would be the widely misunderstood manufactured housing field. Why?
Because as voices across the left-right spectrum have noted, the primary source for wealth creation for most lower- and middle-class Americans is homeownership.
As HUD Secretary Carson has repeatedly said, the typical rental household has some $5,000 in net worth while the typical household that owns or is buying their dwelling has a average net worth of about $200,000.
Carson has stressed manufactured homes has part of his prescription for a stronger America.
Across the left-right divide, research and reports have found that manufactured homes are the most proven form of affordable housing.
It would be shocking if President Trump told Davos attendees that they should come to America and invest in the production, retailing, financing and developing with HUD Code manufactured homes. That said, the laws needed to make that very move possible and profitable are already on the federal books.
It is arguably the failure of the industry’s power brokers, including Warren Buffett led Berkshire Hathaway, that has kept manufactured housing at low ebb. Meanwhile, he and his erstwhile and def facto allies in the Omaha-Knoxville-Arlington axis posture efforts that magically fail to deliver for the industry. That logically means that investors in several firms connected with the Berkshire-dominated Manufactured Housing Institute are being deprived of their true potential.
Is it any surprise that those well-documented and carefully-evidenced allegations have been met by silence from the Omaha-Knoxville-Arlington axis when they and their attorneys were asked? Or that in the wake of the report above, some whistleblower has produced new documents as a news tip to MHProNews that reveals previously unknown wrinkles to the conflicts of interest and purported corruption?
The markets were closed on Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. And as the world’s wealthy and political elites gather at Davos, they do so under heavily armed security. It seems that billionaire Nick Hanauer isn’t the only one worried about pitchforks coming after billionaires and their political front-men?
There is always more to know and more to come on MHProNews, see the related reports below the byline and notices.
The only way to effect positive change is to understand the underlying causes of various problems and then to dare to challenge the status quo with the truth.
That truth should then be followed by intelligent action based upon reality, not fantasy. Investing in doing what’s right is a sounder, safer and more sustainable strategy – plus can arguably yield better profits – than the moat-building manipulations of those that currently dominate manufactured housing.
For our growing number of first-time readers, dare to compare our reports and analysis with any other source in MHVille. You’ll quickly see why despite their periodic bluster, we are documented to have the largest and most engaged audience in our niche. There are reasons why more professionals, investors, politicos and others are coming here.
That’s all she wrote for this installment of manufactured housing “Industry News, Tips and Views Pros Can Use“ © – MHVille’s runaway #1 news source, where “We Provide, You Decide.” © (News, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary.) Notice: all third party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media. 
Submitted by Soheyla Kovach for MHProNews.com.Soheyla is a co-founder and managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com. Connect with us on LinkedIn here and here.
Related References:
The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.
MHI CEO Dick Jennison’s Pledge – 500,000 New Manufactured Home Shipments
