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Why is manufactured housing so widely misunderstood? Does anyone with even modest reasoning ability seriously doubt that if some of the richest people in the world wanted manufactured housing’s positive realities and tremendous potential to be better understood, that those with deep pockets and extensive media or tech resources are capable of making the truth better known? Hold those thoughts, as they will be spotlighted further below as the facts and evidence are laid out in this report and analysis.
William “Bill” Gates III is not generally thought of as a household name in manufactured housing, or even affordable housing. But Gates has for years been closely allied with Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire owns Clayton Homes, 21st Mortgage Corporation, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance (VMF), and a range of other firms that are involved in brokering manufactured home communities, supply, financing, and more. Additionally, Gates and Buffett have long been engaged in billions of dollars in financial support to nonprofits. In manufactured housing, for instance, there are follow-the-money ties between Buffett and/or Gates to the Urban Institute, MHAction, the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI), and more. Then, there are financial ties between Gates and Buffett with big tech and big media. Not to be overlooked is the sway that the duo have over numbers of government agencies, elected political and appointed officials.
Not to be overlooked is that Gates himself has said that he has learned from Buffett, as the CNBC photo caption reminds readers. In fairness, others in the uber-elites might say something similar as Gates did.
In short, if you sincerely want to understand the world of affordable housing and manufactured housing’s place in it, there has to be a ‘follow the money trail’ mentality. That should include at a bare minimum a look at personalities such as Gates and Buffett. MHLivingNews and our MHProNews sister site have in several ways pioneered that type of ‘follow the money trail’ reporting that most specialized trade publishers and bloggers involved in our profession simply ignore. It would be difficult to get an accurate understanding of why manufactured housing is underperforming since the Buffett-led Berkshire era absent an understanding of Buffett, Gates, their clout and methods.
This report will next look at a recent article by the WND Newscenter provided to MHLivingNews. Their report specifically examines Gates and the money-trail. That will be followed by additional MHLivingNews linked information, related analysis, and commentary in brief.
Report cites Bill Gates’ enormous financial influence on media
Has handed out hundreds of millions to favored reporting institutions
By WND Staff
Published November 18, 2021 at 7:36pm
It’s uncontested that Facebook, now Meta, chief Mark Zuckerberg handed out some $420 million to mostly leftist election officials to recruit votes from areas that favored Democrats in the 2020 presidential race.
An in-depth analysis at The Federalist found that Zuckerberg’s huge checks to Center for Technology and Civil Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research essential bought the 2020 president election for Joe Biden.
That’s from William Doyle, a principal researcher at Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute in Irving, Texas, who explained his findings in a report at The Federalist.
He said Zuckerberg’s money was used “to turn out likely Democratic voters.”
Not through traditional political spending, but through a “targeted, private takeover of government election operations by nominally non-partisan – but demonstrably ideological – non-profit organizations.”
Doyle explained analysis work done by his team shows Zuckerbucks, as they have been derogatorily labeled by some, “significantly increased Joe Biden’s vote margin in key swing states.”
He said, “The 2020 election wasn’t stolen — it was likely bought by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men pouring his money through legal loopholes.”
Now, a new report from The Blaze outlines how another another billionaire, Bill Gates, has also been handing out millions of dollars – to news organizations.
He said, “The 2020 election wasn’t stolen — it was likely bought by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men pouring his money through legal loopholes.”
Now, a new report from The Blaze outlines how another another billionaire, Bill Gates, has also been handing out millions of dollars – to news organizations.
“Other direct awards include those bestowed on the Conversation, Germany’s Der Spiegel, Education Week, NBCUniversal Media, France’s Le Monde, the BBC, CNN, the Education Post, the Financial Times, the Texas Tribune and Al-Jazeera.
What the money buys isn’t even concealed, Macleod said, explaining, “The money is generally directed towards issues close to the Gates hearts. For example, the $3.6 million CNN grant went towards ‘report[ing] on gender equality with a focus on least developed countries, producing journalism on the everyday inequalities endured by women and girls across the world.'”
He said the Texas Tribune got millions to boost “public awareness and engagement of education reform issues in Texas.”
The report said, “While the Gates Foundation fosters an air of openness about itself, there is actually precious little public information about what happens to the money from each grant, save for a short, one- or two-sentence description written by the foundation itself on the website. Only donations to press organizations themselves or projects that could be identified from the information on the Gates Foundation’s website as media campaigns were counted, meaning that thousands of grants having some media element do not appear in this list.”
MintPress itself noted that the Gates Foundation also has given nearly $63 million to “charities closely aligned with big media outlets, including nearly $53 million to BBC Media action” and such.
Legacy media aren’t exempted either, with the report revealing the Gates Foundation has given as least $12 million to press and journalism associations and journalists’ groups and teaching endeavors.
The grants, the report confirms, “have an effect on our media.”
“In comparison to other tech billionaires, Gates has kept his profile as a media controller relatively low. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013 was a very clear and obvious form of media influence, as was eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s creation of First Look Media, the company that owns The Intercept,” the report said. “Despite flying more under the radar, Gates and his companies have amassed considerable influence in media. We already rely on Microsoft-owned products for communication (e.g. Skype, Hotmail), social media (LinkedIn), and entertainment (Microsoft XBox). Furthermore, the hardware and software we use to communicate often comes courtesy of the 66-year-old Seattleite. How many people reading this are doing so on a Microsoft Surface or Windows phone and doing so via Windows OS? Not only that, Microsoft owns stakes in media giants such as Comcast and AT&T. And the ‘MS’ in MSNBC stands for Microsoft.”
The report concluded, “None of this means that the organizations receiving Gates’ money — media or otherwise — are irredeemably corrupt, nor that the Gates Foundation does not do any good in the world.
But it does introduce a glaring conflict of interest whereby the very institutions we rely on to hold accountable one of the richest and most powerful men in the planet’s history are quietly being funded by him. This conflict of interest is one that corporate media have largely tried to ignore, while the supposedly altruistic philanthropist Gates just keeps getting richer, laughing all the way to the bank.” ##
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Additional Related Information, more MHLivingNews Analysis and Commentary
To set and keep the record straight, MHLivingNews and our MHProNews sister site have long said that not all news is ‘fake news.’ We’ve cited experts that span the left-right divide to demonstrate that often what passes as ‘news’ is a mix of accurate information that may in a given report subtly-to-brazenly include, leave out, or otherwise slant a topic. It is useful to source from both left-and-right leaning media because authentic facts are what they are. If facts are sifted from mere opinions or spin, and are then carefully examined, the truth can emerge. While we are evidence- and reason-based critics of MHAction and MHI, for example, that doesn’t mean that all that they state is inaccurate. What often occurs is paltering or one of its cousins. Some detail in a report may be overhyped, missed entirely, or is otherwise spun for an agenda-driven effect.
Once the patterns of a bias or their overall agenda of a media source are understood, the good and bad – the wheat and the chaff – of what they generally produce can be better grasped to get to the truth.
Weeks before HUD researchers Pamela Blumenthal and Regina Gray made a stunning admission in a report entitled: Opportunities to Increase Housing Production and Preservation on 9.7.2021, MHLivingNews made this report linked below. Based on citied facts, evidence, and sources our report made several of the same points Blumenthal and Gray did later.
Blumenthal and Gray said: “Without significant new supply, cost burdens are likely to increase as current home prices reach all-time highs, with the median home sales price reaching nearly $375,000 by July 2021.”
“The regulatory environment — federal, state, and local — that contributes to the extensive mismatch between supply and need has worsened over time. Federally sponsored commissions, task forces, and councils under both Democratic and Republican administrations have examined the effects of land use regulations on affordable housing for more than 50 years. Numerous studies find land use regulations that limit the number of new units that can be built or impose significant costs on development through fees and long approval processes drive up housing costs. Research indicates higher housing costs also drive up program costs for federal assistance, reducing the funds available to serve additional households.”
For 5 decades, says HUD’s own researchers, the same mistakes have been made, time and again. Once more, how can that happen unless people in authority want it to be so?
That said, to the point of the WND report that spotlight’s Gates’ influence in big tech and big media.
Something similar applies to Warren Buffett. First, Buffett-led Berkshire owned for several years a number of mainstream media operations. Why didn’t Berkshire use those to ‘educate’ the public on modern manufactured housing? That could have been done in any number of entirely legitimate ways.
But that is not what occurred. Kevin Clayton, in a video interview linked here, spoke about synergy that Berkshire strives to use between their business units when possible. So, it isn’t rocket science to recognize that Berkshire – for their own reasons – apparently decided against such an educational/informational effort. That’s not to say that they never covered manufactured homes favorably. But it is fair to say, based on anecdotal evidence found in MHProNews research on the matter, that Berkshire seemed to follow the same overall pattern of mainstream media. Meaning, much of the news about manufactured homes were ‘bad news.’
Additionally, for some years, members of the Berkshire board of directors have media ties. See this from a Berkshire annual report before Gates stepped down from their board.
Restated, between Buffett-led Berkshire and Gates, it would be easy for an entirely factual educational and informational campaign to be developed. Much of it could be done by companies that are not directly owned outright by Gates or Buffett, even if there may be financial ties via ads, stocks, or whatever. But this has not occurred.
Kevin Clayton said in a softball video interview you can view – or read the transcript from – linked below that Buffett made it clear to him that there is plenty of money to do whatever Clayton wanted. That means, if Clayton wanted to do a serious educational effort to support manufactured housing education and understanding, they could do so. But they have not.
Then, there is the fact that for years, Kevin Clayton and Clayton dominated MHI have promised a media campaign that might look like the Recreational Vehicle (RV) industry’s demonstrably successful GoRVing campaign. That too has never actually occurred.
The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this fact pattern is this. The corporate and financial powers that be behind MHI have apparently made the decision that it suits their specific purposes to allow the status quo that keeps the industry misunderstood and thus underperforming in place. See the related reports linked herein to learn more.
The bottom line is this. It isn’t just Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett for that matter, that are using their money, corporate, and nonprofit clout to frame issues in a way that they apparently favor. There are serious third-party researchers that have said that creating underperformance benefits a few – in their own minds, for their own purposes – while harming the many. This is why much of what is occurring in the American economy is not free enterprise. It is corporate collusion which often includes public officials. Voices across the left-right divide have said as much, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D), Joe Biden (D), 45th President Donald Trump (R), and former California Governor Jerry Brown (D).
We lay out the facts and insights that others are too lazy, agenda-driven, or otherwise uninformed to do. That’s what makes our sister site and this location the runaway leaders for authentic information about affordable housing in general, the politics behind the problems, and manufactured homes specifically. That’s a wrap on this installment of “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 MHLivingNews.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.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
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