For those of you who have sent news tips that have not yet been addressed, take heart.
Some tips are addressed rapidly, once verified. Others ae held for an appropriate time to tackle an issue. This is more of the latter category.
How does the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) create or devise some of its various reports?
In some cases, that work is farmed out to their parties, like Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, LLC.
Here is a specific example. For simplicity, this will look at only the first two paragraphs of the report as shown.
Memorandum
To: CLIENT DISTRIBUTION
From: Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, LLC
Re: Summary of Election Results and the Financial Services Outlook for the 115th Congress
Date: November 9, 2016
“Donald J. Trump (R) shocked the world and defeated Hillary Clinton (D) with an electoral college vote of at least 290-228 to become the 45th President of the U.S.1 Secretary Clinton is likely to win the popular vote. Voters turned out en masse to vote against the establishment in favor of ending the status quo. This “populist right” movement does not subscribe to traditional Republican ideology, but it helped keep Republican majorities in the House (238-193) and Senate (52-47).2 For the first time since 2001, an election provided Republicans with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
These election results will slow down, if not stop, a range of regulatory efforts across all sectors. The “populist right” movement believes in free enterprise, but is not blindly pro-business which they believe is rife with crony capitalism. Tax “loopholes” and special interest “benefits” are suspect. While Trump will support a pro-growth agenda of lower taxes, less regulation, energy independence and infrastructure spending, he will also frustrate Republicans with “fair trade” policies, immigration policy, and nationalism.”
That’s who this was addressed to from Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, LLC, so it wasn’t just MHI.
What follows are the first two paragraphs of what MHI published, 5 days later, and distributed to their members.
MHI NEWS & UPDATES
Nov. 14, 2016
The 2016 Election’s Expected Impact on Manufactured Housing
“Last Tuesday, voters elected Donald J. Trump (R) as the 45th President of the United States. Voters turned out to vote against the establishment in favor of ending the status quo. This “populist right” movement does not subscribe to traditional Republican ideology, but it helped keep Republican majorities in the House and Senate. It is the first time since 2004 that Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
The election results are expected to slow down, if not stop, a range of regulatory efforts across all sectors. The “populist right” movement believes in free enterprise, but is not blindly pro-business, which they believe is rife with crony capitalism. President-Elect Trump is expected to support a progrowth agenda of lower taxes, less regulation, energy independence and infrastructure spending. He will also focus on “fair trade” policies and immigration policy.”
- Notice that much of what MHI shared is word-for-word, including the grammatical glitches, from Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, LLC (PFS)?
- Note too that MHI doesn’t cite the source of their quotes and close paraphrases?
- Let’s be clear. This is not illegal, because they paid for it. But isn’t it misleading, to their own members? MHI had several highly paid staff members, then and now. In 2016, beyond rephrasing part of what PFS first published, what exactly did MHI staffers – specifically, Lesli Gooch, Ph.D. do? Because an MHI insider called precisely Gooch’s lack of transparency in this matter into question.
The two different reports are linked on their names, PFS’s at this link here, and MHI’s at this link here.
Keep in mind the principle of transparency that ELS’ late Vice Chairman, Howard Walker said was important.
Howard Walker, Mensch – Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), Manufactured Homes Retrospective
Why do some staffers at MHI, as well as a number of MHI members, complain about a lack of transparency? There are complaints about the MHI ‘inner circle,’ that is kept in the loop, with the bulk of their own members being kept in the dark, or per sources, are misled by top MHI staff?
This PFS example above isn’t a one-off instance of this, per our sources at MHI.
While this arguably isn’t the biggest issue facing manufactured housing, what this report does is tee up some future facts that point to a pattern identified by reports like those, linked above and further below under the related reports. MHI’s leaders, per sources, are ‘nervous’ about ‘the next shoe to drop,’ as revelations like yesterdays and others linked below pile up. Note that to date, MHI has not even tried to publicly debunk a single such MHProNews report. It’s a funny thing about facts, they are not easily changed.
Keep in mind too that MHI leaders and ‘big boys’ are backing anti-Trump candidates in key midterm battleground states. So, while the posture with industry officials at HUD and elsewhere that they embrace the Trump agenda, doesn’t their financial backing of pro-Trump candidates in key states suggest otherwise?
That’s MH “Industry News, Tips and Views Pros Can Use,” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (News, analysis, and commentary.)
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If you scratch deeply enough, people of good will can find some common ground with others of good will. There will be disagreements between people. It has been so, since ‘the fall,’ and is expected to continue that way until time comes to an end.
“I knew right from the beginning.” When President Trump, First Lady Melania, VP Pence Toured Manufactured Home Community – manufacturedhomelivingnews.com
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