Image: Dr. Zak, wikimedia commons.
America is filled with lots of poor people these days, and there’s plenty of money to be made off them.
With Wall Street already turning once-homeowners into renters in housing neighborhoods, billionaires and entrepreneurs are now investing in trailer parks, where they are making considerable fortunes off of raising the rent on the poorest among us.
The economic concept is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
Generally speaking, these people moved into trailer parks for the cheap rent, and even with rent prices soaring, these poor people have nowhere else to go.
“The economics are compelling… there’s a lot more poor people than rich people,” one investor said.
The London Guardian spotlighted this trending market for moguls, following a bus load of ‘boot campers’ at Mobile Park University who are learning how to profit from the poor, many of whom are ironically found immobile and ‘trapped’ in their mobile homes:
According to the Guardian:
Trailer parks are big and profitable business – particularly after hundreds of thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the financial crisis created a huge demand for affordable housing. According to US Census figures, more than 20 million people, or 6% of the population, live in trailer parks.
It is a market that has not been lost on some of the country’s richest and most high-profile investors. Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) is the largest mobile home park owner in America, with controlling interests in nearly 140,000 parks. In 2014, ELS made $777m in revenue, helping boost Zell’s near-$5bn fortune.
Warren Buffett, the nation’s second-richest man with a $72bn fortune, owns the biggest mobile home manufacturer in the US, Clayton Homes, and the two biggest mobile home lenders, 21st Mortgage Corporation and Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance Company. Buffett’s trailer park investments will feature heavily at his annual meeting this weekend, which will be attended by more than 40,000 shareholders in Omaha.
Even for those who own their own trailers, the cost of moving them is insurmountable – with thousands of dollars to relocate a trailer too much a burden to escape the rising floor of rent prices.
At its worst, investors are becoming slumlords with a captive market of poor people, with new pressures from a market that is none too forgiving of the have-nots.
At its best, the opportunities are lopsided and seem to be squeezing those who can least afford it.
Today, the profits are virtually assured, with rent prices often ‘more than doubling’ over night.
“Raising the rent is typically part of the day one purchase, because often the ‘mom and pop’ [previous, family-run owner of a park] has not raised the rent in years so it’s far below market.
“We traditionally raise our rents by an average of 10% a year or something like that, and it’s pretty much true for the industry. Our world record [rent increase] went from $125 to $275 in one month.”
Not so much back in the 50s and 60s. America was too affluent then, and this kind of investing in low income mobile home housing wasn’t possible – or at least not readily profitable.
Frank Rolfe, who runs Mobile Home University, explains why he focuses on family trailer parks, and why he encourages others to do so as well:
“Family parks tend to have higher expenses. They have households that use more water, they wash cars, whatever. But the big thing is they can really tolerate rent increases really well. So family parks are our favorite parks. Almost all the parks we have, with rare exceptions, are family parks. And it pretty much works throughout America because there’s so much need for affordable housing right now. It didn’t work at all back in the 50s and 60s – there were no poor people.”
“Today, there’s a huge number of poor people, and there’s more poor people like everyday.”
A hand out shown in the video reads, in bold: “Can tolerate rent increases better.”
Raising rents is the whole point of buying a trailer park, of course.
“The rents do not go down,” prospective park buyers are also told.
That pretty much sums up how a class of rent seekers are squeezing the poor for more money, and making it even harder for them to get ahead.
Of course, these 1-percenters and entrepreneurs are just swimming in the waters that we all live in – with market forces creating massive whirlpools and tidal forces after six plus years of cheap money from the Fed’s quantitative easing for those at the top and a difficult if not crushing job market for average and struggling Americans, many of whom are struggling just to make ends meet.
Many of the park residents interviewed in the Guardian’s video are on fixed income or working low wage jobs. Most said they understand the business aspect of raising rents, but thought the rates were too high to handle from a personal standpoint.
One resident, who liked his park, said he was forced to move because of increasing rents, while discussing other residents who were selling their trailers for $100 – or even giving them away – because they couldn’t find anyone to buy them.
“They are trapped.. actually they are,” the resident told the Guardian’s Rupert Neate.
Neate interviewed trailer park mogul Frank Rolfe about the impact rising rents were having on poor residents:
“But did you feel bad at all, with people on social security or earning minimum wage, and then suddenly they’ve got to pay double the money?”
“I didn’t feel badly about it, because I’m bringing it to market, and I don’t dictate what market is. So to be honest with you, if we hadn’t raised the rent, the park wouldn’t exist, because it would have been made into a different use.”
That may be, but as many have pointed out, the effect of Federal Reserve intervention to the 2008 crisis has been a massive inflation of asset prices, putting more pressure on everyone down the line. Wolf Street noted that: “Speculative buying drove up prices beyond the reach of many potential buyers.”
Rolfe said he sends letters to his residents ahead of rent surges, but few, if any, move on account of the extra cost:
“If you don’t like this or you think you can do better, here’s a list of all the other parks in Grapevine and a list of the owners,” he said in the letter. “Go ahead, call them if you want to move. How many customers do you think we lost? Zero. Where were they going to go?”
And it’s not just the poor who are facing these challenges.
It is worth noting, as SHTF has before, that homeownership is now at its lowest point since the 1980s, and it is primarily affecting young, middle class families who would have been investing in their biggest and most personal asset, but instead, find themselves renting single family homes from distant brokers on Wall Street:
The American Dream is dissipating at a record pace, Wolf Richter argues:
Homeownership in the fourth quarter dropped to 63.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis, the lowest level since Q3 1994, according to the Commerce Department. In all of 2014, homeownership plunged by 1.2 percentage points, the largest annual drop in the history of the data series going back to 1980.
These are the age groups where the first-time buyers are concentrated. And they’re being sidelined.
That’s because home owners, particularly first time buyers, are being priced out and pushed way, while renters – in both apartments and homes – are rising.
Since 2008, homeownership has been fading in all age groups. But in these two age groups, it plunged respectively 6 points and 7.9 points!
And the bitter irony in the report? The vacancy rate in the rental market dropped to 7.0%, the lowest since 1993. America is turning into a country of renters.
Along with the decline of the middle class, come the rise of Wall Street mega-landlords and, indeed, mega-slumlords putting new rent pressures on the poor.
It Took 22 Years to Get to This Point
The health "experts" are "on alert" after the first case of bird flu has been found in a child....
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The End of the American Dream under the...
This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. Update(1315ET): After months...
Commenting Policy:
Some comments on this web site are automatically moderated through our Spam protection systems. Please be patient if your comment isn’t immediately available. We’re not trying to censor you, the system just wants to make sure you’re not a robot posting random spam.
This website thrives because of its community. While we support lively debates and understand that people get excited, frustrated or angry at times, we ask that the conversation remain civil. Racism, to include any religious affiliation, will not be tolerated on this site, including the disparagement of people in the comments section.
GREED….regardless of the landowners justification, the almighty profit above all else is a contributing factor to our demise. They can’t be satisfied with a nice comfortable living. I have to be a billionaire…and if its hard on the poor and elderly so what. My .02
They will squeeze and squeeze until they’ve taken everything from us…then suddenly America will have its Bastille moment.
For 250 years the ‘Nobles’ have been trying to put us ‘serfs’ back on their fiefdom.
They’ve finally done it.
You might be a redneck if…
Your trailer is so old the axles have rusted out and collapsed.
You have old tires on the roof that you use to replace the ones on your car.
There is a tunnel path through the grass to find the door on your trailer.
You have 3 families of possums under your trailer.
The county code enforcement fags drive on by thinking it is just someone bulldozing junk to haul away.
Absolutely disgusting when you read stuff like this. I know of several of these parks in my area and it’s really the poor and elderly who are on fixed income and have nowhere else to go.
The rich always get rich using slavery. Repackage it, call it something else like slum lords, it’s still slavery.
Absolutely disgusting when you read stuff like this. I know of several of these parks in my area and it’s really the poor and elderly who are on fixed income and have nowhere else to go.
Welcome to Ayn Rand’s America.
Buffett is a worthless scumbag
You have it right vegas Jim. When people have the riches that Buffet has it is only right to pay some of the riches back to the less fortunate. I made a lot of money and i always paid my workers top wages and i helped them out when needed.
Was it worth it ? I can live with myself and that is important to me.
Yes the poor and elderly will get hit pretty hard. Also remember that many of those need their medications. It is hard for them to pay for them now. And the prices will only go up.
We need to help them when we all can. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you like help? Or just be passed by? Thinking..probably someone else will do it? Maybe not, so don’t count on it.
We are a different kind of nation, sad to say in ways. Other countries live with and help their families. And others not so fortunate. Not all americans are like that.Some run far away and some help each other.
Buy a extra few canned goods if you can. Its just a few bucks. Or fresh veggies from your garden. Make it a point of your day to at least do something good for some one. Even house repairs or paint can go a long way these days.
It will make you feel better. Trust me.
Hard times are coming people, we need to help each other live.
I worry about my daughters type 1 diabetes. It is much different from the type 2 that comes on later in life. She weighed 114. Those meds are way expensive.
I imagine she will die, as well as I will. No thyroid. But I have accepted my fate. Its hard to think about your childrens.
They said in Baltimore, they burned down a pharmacy while rioting. Not good for those with critical meds. Or for anyone else for that matter. When SHTF, it will be very bad.
So please help people when you can.
Pass it on! 🙂
Oh but you gots money for cigarettes, pills, beer, cable and chips. Raising the rent sounds like a great way to flush the garbage out of the park. Supply and demand baby!! Let er’ Rip!!!
May the Creator send their bad luck to you.
Please, if your dumbass is living in a trailer park today you already are fucked. Those 10, 000 life decisions you made got you to where you are today. Really complaint about trailer park rent? Bwhahahahaha. Take responsibility for your drop ass and make a living for you and your family. Those broke ass neighbors of mine keep coming over to borrow money. I told him I am not a bank and he should go to the ATM. He has this dumb ass puzzled hick look on his face. What’s the next? To complaincomplains about the price of cheeze wizz and corn curls?
You have a smart mouth and putting down people that have had a hard time making it due to lost jobs and losing their businesses ect. is damn low of you and anyone else that does that. May the Creator send some of their bad luck your way to teach you a lesson.
Pastor Dale Brown
When you lose your job, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. When you lose your income, you will lose everything. It WILL happen. People in the U.S. find that out everyday now.
It just takes a few days, maybe a dew weeks to lose it all. And with the economy we have now, you cannot find a new job in a day or a month.
It is happening to people all over the world.
It is nothing to laugh about while you go hungry. Trust me. I lost a baby on my birthday many years ago because of this. There was no help. Salvation army didnt even help. So now every year, I am reminded of this and hunger.
Be nice to people.
whodunit, I am not a dumbass for living in a trailer– I pay rent and its only $300/month– CHEAP!! Furthermore, I don’t own the trailer– just pay rent. and the utilities are quite low. so don’t criticize what you don’t know.
Yes. All True.I used to install A/C units in a trailer park that was owned by a friend of mine. He [passed away and his wife sold the place. There were 300 spots. The new owners(a corporation) immediately raised the rent 20% in everyone because no one had a contract with the park. Then as people got contracts they raised the rent again. In 4 years the rent went from $425 to almost $1000 per month along with lots or restrictions and addition of 200 more spaces by splitting the lots the people were already renting. Most of these people had old singlewide trailers that were paid off and were pretty much held hostage to the whims of the new owners. It costs a lot to move a trailer and most of these people had no money to move them. Some people just abandoned their trailers because they couldn’t afford to either move them or pay the new rent so the new owners sued them for an average of $25000 for lost rents and costs associated with cleaning up and removing the trailers. I really felt sorry for the tenants most old and retired folks.
That is so sad…..:(
If I won the lottery ( right) , I would like to buy land parcels for people like that.
For them to call a area home. Set it up so it belonged to the people, for the people. And if you die, no one can take it.
Tiny houses are cool, and can be moved of needed and by a truck, not a semi.
I often wonder about millionares…why don’t they help less fortunate ones.They could.
I guess maybe greed. I wouldn’t know….
I know of one landlord that raised his rent due to increased taxes,utility cost and insurance premiums and provided the documentation to his renters when he did it. Pay scale going down and cost of living going up.
I don’t think living in a trailer park with cheap rent is the American Dream. Many of these TP deadbeats are collecting on disability from the sniffles. Lazy Americans will be some of the first to parish in SHTF. Yep clinging to their chips and pepsi.
How inapt the imagery. When seized the Bastille housed only 7 old men who reportedly were annoyed at the disturbance.
9/11, Bastille, Holocaust—so much phony “history”!
How’s the white noise in there today, John?
After living 2 years in my SUV, I’ve finally found affordable rent… I live in a trailer.
The rent for the space the trailer sits on is $375/month and they just raised the rent $11 extra per month– not bad.
However, even if you own your own trailer, you can still get screwed, as this article points out, unless you own your own land too! Ideally, its better to get a cheap piece of land even if you have to live in a tent, and gradually build on it– otherwise, its just paying rent to someone and you could end up broke!
I had considered buying a trailer but then realized that even if you had a trailer you could get screwed by the person who owns the land the trailer sits on… decided against it. If I had the money, I would buy some land or new vehicle… and when I had more money, have a fireplace built on my property or an old stove set up… then get a room built around it… gradually… but the way the economy is going, don’t know if my dreams will ever come true– they are screwing us right and left.
sigh.
You can’t half blame the owners for raising the cost of rent in an effort to chase the dollar as the FED devalues it. The real crime is that set incomes, pensions, and social security are all being outpaced by the dollar’s inflation, making the disparity between the rich and poor seem to the problem when its really currency manipulation by the bankers. But they just want to blame the business entrepreneurs and make them the bad guys as any good communists would do.
“Even for those who own their own trailers, the cost of moving them is insurmountable … ”
And that is the case if you CAN move it. In AZ you cannot move a manufactured home (trailer) if its more than 20 or 30 years old.
Can’t remember the exact age where that law kicks in, but it does, or use too. 🙁
Good old crapitalism at it’s finest. At least Rush Limbaugh can light another cigar for CON-servative values and rugged individualism.
Ahhh, so you support a good ol socialist bloodbath and good ol socialist egalitarian poverty.
I see you (see the name).
Don’t let your mind get locked into the two-dimensional paradigm pushed by your earthly masters.
There is “the third way”—WIDESPREAD ownership of property.
Off topic. I cleaned my 9mm’s today, lots of drit 90 day out at the BOL. Justbcatching up w/ chores. Bore sited my AR -15’s also last night to my laser light, ordered some remote motion detectors and and 2 IR game cams and motion alert lights. Know all thay stepa foot on your property. Protect your perimiter. Got to stay on top of all apects of prepping. So dig your to-go pistol and rifle out and get at it. Dirt n Rust is like cancer.
Yup, just plain f%$king greed. There will be a day of recconing for these pr%$ks. Slum land lords have always been a bain on society.
They will pay dearly for their greed. Love of money will destroy them. They cannot be happy with a fair profit. they want it all and it does not matter who they destroy getting
their enormous profit.
God Hates Greed and He will Destroy the greedy one”s. Pastor Dale Brown
*** Future News ***
“Did you feel badly about killing the slumlord, his staff , their families, and burning his offices and all their houses down?”
Nope.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” Thomas Jefferson
ok then. I will get another name. Good post.
I don’t care if you use that name, just not the way I have mine. I have been here off and on a while, and will not change.
This is not an actual TJ quote. Please look up the actual quote, its much more effective to do so for your comment.
For example, http://www.monticello.org/ has a fine set of vetted Jefferson quotes, along with real misquotes such as this one.
The word deflation was not used in economics until 1920s, “n. 1891, “release of air,” from deflate + -ion. In reference to currency or economic situations, from 1920.” American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. (Deflation did not exist until the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 set the fiat currency on its course of inflate/deflate.)
What this article fails to mention is that most of the trailer parks are HUD funded, not renters paying cash.
People that buy mobile homes put them on paid off land, then use the capital of the land as a down payment refinance to fund the down payment of the loan for the mobile home.
People in ‘mobile home parks’ own the trailer and rent the land. Thus they cannot leverage the land.
For many years in my youth, simply to save money, I paid a trailer payment and LOT RENT in a run down trailer park full of dopeheads… but that was ok, since there was a party every night… somewhere.
😉
The Jew Sam Zell is just doing his part to help spread “Tikkun Olam” to the poor.
Precisely on target! How the Master Race intends to “heal the world”: 95% depopulation, then enslavement and damnation of the survivors.
“And if you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? for sinners also love those that love them. And if you do good to them who do good to you, what thanks are to you? for sinners also do this. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thanks are to you? for sinners also lend to sinners, for to receive as much. But love ye your enemies: do good, and lend, hoping for nothing thereby: and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest; for he is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
Luke 6:32-36
Of course, such decency is no guide for those who revile Jesus Christ.
Just like that Christian Warren Buffet is doing his part to spread the Word?
This is what the path to a second civil war is paved with: short-sighted greed, incomprehensible amorality, and a sociopathic disregard for the obvious inevitable consequences.
AC, I couldn’t have said it better. Predatory capitalism with excessive greed and insane policies is only one thing leading this nation to destruction. Although I’ve had to rent for my whole life, I’ve been fortunate not to face any MAJOR increases in rent over the years. The increases I’ve had were always small and incremental. I rent a single-family home since 1999 and the rent on it is reasonable. I’ve lived in a trailer once before and I’m here to tell you, if you can avoid living in a mobile home, avoid it if possible. They’re not well-made, the insulation is cheap so your utility bills will be high, and the electrical systems are not good. I lived in a small 1-bedroom trailer in 1982 for 3 months before I was burned out of it in an electrical fire. I said right then no more f#$%ing trailers for me ever again. From 1982 to 1999 I was in apartments, which also suck big time. With a single-family home at least you have a decent amount of space plus with washer-dryer connections not have to go to a stinking laundromat for washing clothes. I also have room for my preps. But I realize a growing number of people have no choice but to go to trailer parks these days. In my area, there’s not too many trailer parks but there are a bunch of apartment complexes vacant that need to either be redone or bulldozed so there’s not very much rental property available in my area and what is available is priced out of a lot of people’s reach. If these trailer park investors don’t watch themselves, they will eventually shoot themselves in their own feet.
Brave, not to top it off a lot of parks wont allow trailers over 10 years old.
They can’t pay trailer park rent but are leasing monthly spinner wheel rims for it.
I met a guy on a ski trip to Aspen who was a trailer park slumlord. He said it was a cash pig, and he had a hot looking wife.
Hey Cuz you know what they say about them house trailers out there in tornado alley. Don’t buy one, Cause they’re here today and gone tomorrow.
NGIC, for once you made a sensible comment. Don’t worry, I won’t get a trailer REGARDLESS, not after I got burned out of one in 82.
And the path to the third-world is paved with immature laments about greedy capitalists.
Grow up.
The Third World is all but defined by its short-sighted greed, incomprehensible amorality, and a sociopathic disregard for the obvious inevitable consequences of their actions.
I suggest you take your own advice.
Except it should be obvious that the short-sighted greed and disregard for obvious consequences in the impoverished parts of the world comes in the form of anti-capitalism and the diminishment of property rights.
The experiment has been done to death.
how is a divorce in oklahoma like a tornado in texas?……..somebody’s gonna lose a TRAILER!
‘Wealth lasts three generations’ is an (allegedly) old Chinese proverb. The people currently in charge are the third generation.
You do the math.
Just when I thought maybe I too am falling to far into the rabbit hole…….nope, I’m just getting duped by advertising folks looking for a new niche market.
Touché shtf……touché.
Lol. That business strategy won’t work long… Unless goobermeant ponies up. Prolly will as rich own gov. In fact prolly 90% of those rents are already paid by taxpayer. Just a formal memo to local goobs to pay the rich more.
In michigan, trailer park residents don’t pay property taxes,but they use all of the services. The state gets money from the Feds if they provide low income housing. The state profits big from doing this. And of course some of the money goes to pay the lobbyist to keep the money going to the fed so it can go to the state so the state can give it to the Feds .and what isn’t stolen or used to pay off other politicians , goes to needy third world countries. Can’t be nothing wrong with that..
i beg to differ on mobile homes not paying property taxes. if they’re renting in a park (but own their homes, lets say), the property tax is deducted from the lot’s rental income. property tax is an expense, all park related expenses are deducted from the rent.
“Even for those who own their own trailers, the cost of moving them is insurmountable – with thousands of dollars to relocate a trailer too much a burden to escape the rising floor of rent prices.”
That doesn’t sound possible. Back in the 1980s when I lived in a trailer, it cost less than $100 to move it. I did the setup myself with help from friends. I was actually moving from a $35 a month single lot in the country to a $60 lot in a trailer park closer to town. Gas was costing so much, and it was such a hassle to get to town to go to work, buy groceries, etc. I was making about $6 an hour back then.
There’s no way it should cost more than a few hundred dollars nowadays to hire a truck to tow a trailer, unless you’re talking about moving from Maine to California.
Archivist, I think he is talking about a modular home. It is expensive as hell to move one. Speaking of trailers, when are you going to move yours out of my back yard? You haven’t paid rent in 6 months! Frickin freeloader!
JK my man 🙂 you can stay lol.
Hey Genius, theirs House Trailers and then theirs Manufactured Homes and then theirs Modular Homes. As a rule they don’t set up Modular Homes in a Trailer Park.
MT, They do setup modulars in trailer parks here. Usually around the outer perimeter. RV type and park models on the inside. It all depends where you live I guess.
I sold my trailer 30 years ago. I bought it for $4,000 and sold it for $3,000 three years later. A trailer doesn’t depreciate much after it gets old enough.
OLD TRAILERS NEVER DIE!
THEY JUST MOVE TO ARIZONA! 😛
2-3 thousand in this neck of the woods
and that is for a trailer,
modular home much more
It costs about $4k to move one now. My sister can’t move from hers. I would like to move her trailer her, but it’s cheaper to find one on land here and have her move….her trailer lot rent is more than the trailer was when she moved in 10 years ago! She owns the trailer now but is too disabled to fix it…so I will be going up to help….
don’t forget that gubmint regulations enacted since then are going to drive up the cost, archivist…i aint no expert, but i bet you can’t just up and move one without paying attention to what city officials got to say about it….you can ignore politics, but they won’t ignore YOU!
Archivist, it can cost $15,000 to move a trailer now, according to our local paper reporting on a trailer park being sold off. Unhook utilities, remove skirts/foundations, remove belongings or pack securely, route verification, flaggers, permits, chase vehicles, setup at new site, hook up utilities, all that costs money. For a double wide add expense of breaking it in half and reassemble.
I did everything myself except hook up the electricity at the trailer park and actually hauling the trailer with the mover’s truck. The trailer wasn’t very wide, so we used back roads with no chase car or anything. It was all in the country, so no permits were needed. I leveled the trailer, blocked it, put tie-down straps over it and anchored them in the ground, hooked up the water and sewer, and installed the skirting.
My only cost was $90 for moving the trailer and whatever it cost for city electric to inspect the plumbing and hook up the electricity. They took a couple of days to do the inspection and hook up the electricity, so I ran an extension cord to a friendly neighbor so I could run the refrigerator and TV. As far as packing, I didn’t do any and had the truck driver take it easy driving. The only thing I lost was one light globe in the bathroom.
Almost anything can be done much cheaper if you’re not too lazy to do part of it yourself. You see that on TV on DIY shows where the homeowners save money by helping the contractors in demolition and painting.
I’m sure it’s a lot easier to sneak a trailer down a country road than it is to move one out of the middle of a built-up urban area.
DIY works for lots of things, but not everything.
Obamanomics – in a nutshell:
Nearly 50 percent of Americans who are in the labor force, but remain unemployed, have abandoned all attempts at finding a job.
That’s the conclusion of a new Harris poll of 1,500 unemployed Americans, which found that 47 percent have, according to the poll summary, “completely given up” looking for work.
“The economy is giving the unemployed reasons to quit looking for work,” it continues:
• 47 percent agree with the statement, “I’ve completely given up on looking for a job.” (7 percent said they “agree completely,” 7 percent “agree a lot,” 15 percent “agree somewhat,” and 18 percent “agree a little.”
• 60 percent say looking for work has been harder than expected. 10 percent say it’s been easier than expected.
• Nevertheless, 91 percent agree with the statement, “I’m hopeful that I will find a job I really want in the next six months.”
“After searching for four years and being unsuccessful, I am tired of trying,” said one respondent.
In keeping with its contention that the overall economy is just too weak to field employment opportunities that accommodate America’s labor force, a large bloc of respondents said there simply aren’t any jobs available — and they’ve been looking.
“People want to find work, but increasingly many people say there is little they can do to find it,” the poll states. “When asked what is holding them back from finding a job, 46 percent say there are no available jobs.”
I lost the source for this, but will post if I find it
I found a newer version from the original source:
40% of Unemployed Have Given Up.
You don’t need to be in prison
to be on death row, all you
need to be is old enough.
gads things have gone to the dogs in a hurry
More from the wonders of Obama’s socialist nirvana:
The number of Americans 16 years and older who did not participate in the labor force–meaning they neither had a job nor actively sought one in the last four weeks–rose from 92,898,000 in February to 93,175,000 in March, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That is the first time the number of Americans out of the labor force has exceeded 93 million. Also from February to March, the labor force participation rate dropped from 62.8 percent to 62.7 percent, matching a 37-year low. Five times in the last twelve months, the participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent; but March’s 62.7 percent, which matches the participation rate seen in September and December of 2014, is the lowest since February of 1978. (Read more from “Americans Not in Labor Force Exceed 93 Million for First Time”
Cited from CNS News at http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-not-labor-force-exceed-93-million-first-time-627-labor-force And BTW, if you want REAL news, CNS is a great place to start
More from the wonders of Obama’s socialist nirvana:
The number of Americans 16 years and older who did not participate in the labor force–meaning they neither had a job nor actively sought one in the last four weeks–rose from 92,898,000 in February to 93,175,000 in March, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That is the first time the number of Americans out of the labor force has exceeded 93 million. Also from February to March, the labor force participation rate dropped from 62.8 percent to 62.7 percent, matching a 37-year low. Five times in the last twelve months, the participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent; but March’s 62.7 percent, which matches the participation rate seen in September and December of 2014, is the lowest since February of 1978. (Read more from “Americans Not in Labor Force Exceed 93 Million for First Time”
Cited from CNS News at http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-not-labor-force-exceed-93-million-first-time-627-labor-force And BTW, if you want REAL news, CNS is a great place to start
Meanwhile, I understand Michelle-Marie Antoinette Obama and just 800 of her leftist corruptocrats from the People’s Thugocracy of Shootcago will be renting out the country of Lichtenstein for the month of July (giving the boot to the residents… they can “eat cake.”)
Can’t we just hire all these unemployed as travel agents for the CO2 spewing jets of the Obunglers. I”m thinking to handle them, and all their cronies, adequately, it might take 15% of the total American working population.
Just a thought
This is not right!! Making money is ok if you are not making money off the backs of the people that can not afford it. If you work at a job and earn a living and you are not putting the squeeze on anyone that’s fine make as much money that you want to make.
If you are making money off the poor, I mean truly poor and hard workers in this country, you should be thrown in jail and all that money you stole should be given to some charity that really helps the poor.
Wait a minute!!! take money from the poor and hard workers!!! that means those clowns in DC. and in my case Chiraq Illinois belong in jail!!.
S.T.S.F.P. N.Reb
Good idea, comrad. I’m sure you’ll decide who gets to keep their earnings and whose must be given to ‘charities’ (maybe United Way?).
OK, let’s throw all the management of Goodwill, Value Village, and United Way in jail, since they’re making money off the poor people.
And the guy that owns the 7-11 down the street, he’s exploiting the masses, too. Should put him down for ten years at least, right?
make no mistake about it
the rich have ALWAYS been parasites on the poor
this is nothing new
just one example from history
How the Other Half Lives
ht tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Other_Half_Lives
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Live Free or Die…so be it!
Talon1776
when will the masses learn? I guess is
never get it. They are
going to be a real issue. People whiteout the ability and without any live saving food will be a major threat. When will they get? Here is what is going to happen? They, the wallmarters in carts are history. Sorry but I will not fight to save dead weight.
When millions of us Are freezing or starving to death only then will the revolution begin
Millions of us are already freezing or starving to death. You just don’t hear about them on the nightly news.
I am prepared for the worst. I am enbarrasewd to say that I slept under a bridge in 2013 for 4 days, slept in my car in public parking lots for for 1 1/2 yrs, because I had lot money left when I paid all of my business overhead. My customers came first and I had to basically shut up and put up with the hellacious lifestyle.
Now it looks like when September comes around, that now I will be homeless again and know I have to be homeless again. However that’s before I embraced the shtf lifestyle. I have evolved to something more more efficient. I have back up contingencies..now I have allies who know what’s coming and we are ready for hell on earth. Trust me it’s not the banks closing that’s bothering us, it’s the roaming unprepared masses. Its going to be a World War Z type of outcome.
The Guardian? Really? C’mon.
First, part of this story isn’t about poor people that can’t move. It’s about sex-offenders that can’t move. Rules concerning where sex-offenders can and cannot live come from the state. Investors have nothing to do with it.
Second, this is about trailer homes IN FLORIDA. Florida has seen a huge increase in demand for housing and has seen huge shortages, especially after the cold winters in the northeast. Prices are going to go up.
And they should.
That’s the only thing that will increase supply and fairly allocate a limited resource.
It sucks for people that have lived decades in a tropical climate, paying less than market rates for a warm sunny place to live, to suddenly have to pay more or move away and make room for someone else escaping a rougher climate, but until volcanism or coral reefs build more land, there’s going to be competition for desirable places to live.
And if prices don’t go up, then no one will invest in new housing or new parks and there will be more shortages.
Finally, as someone who who actually grew up in these sorts of neighborhoods, I can tell you that few of these people will be any help at all in a SHTF scenario. Many are on public assistance or disability (often mental disability). Some are drug dealers. Some are prostitutes. And some are even retired “bill collectors” from New Jersey (not kidding).
The best thing for many of these places is for investors to come in, clean them up, and force out the dead wood and criminals.
It WOULD be easier to feel sorry if these people weren’t leeches or sex offenders, although it’s amazing what ‘crimes’ can get you on the ‘registered offender’ list.
The Guardian is a left-wing rag and endlessly promotes Britain’s wasteful culture of welfare and deadbeatism. They are to be taken with a grain of salt.
I do not think this is a bad thing: the Wall Street firms are bringing higher standards and greater business effectiveness to these parks. The situation is what it is: the government encouraged a lot of people to go into debt to become home owners who had no savings and no job prospects. Now, these people are broke and are on public assistance and can only afford to live in trailer parks. So, the f#ck, what!
They are lucky the Wall Street firms have created a market for providing them with homes because this would not happen if they had to depend on the government. These new owners clean up the parks and kick out the criminals, hookers, drug dealers and dirtbags and make the places more family-friendly. It is an act of kindness if anything.
I would rather live in one of these places than many urban areas in the US, or in public housing projects.
mc6809e
Prices must go up. In Florida! You have to be a Yankee. That is all I here. Prices must go up. Tax and spend. They dream all sorts of things to do with taxes and if they are not careful Florida is going to run out of Water. They build all sorts of infrastructure and then Tax you again for the upkeep.
New parks? They just built a $300,000 park for dogs to shit in.. If I took a crap in the park they would put me in jail. But it was my Tax money that built it.
When I say that “prices must go up” I’m in part referring to the mechanism that puts a check on unsustainable growth and not a mechanism for increasing tax revenue.
The government is constantly trying to override the price mechanism to help people obtain and consume that which is limited in supply.
The entire welfare state, by trying to compensate for the scarcity implied by high prices, is allowing and promoting unsustainable growth.
This complaint about higher prices in Florida trailer parks is really a complaint that living space is scarce.
Well sure. And it doesn’t become less scarce by preventing prices from rising. Instead it becomes more scarce.
Seems it might be time to buy some cheap land and throw a few trailers on it for the easy income.
i suspect that it would be next to impossible to build a new trailer park these days. government regulations (federal, state, county, town, village…), zoning, and plenty of people to stand up in meetings to say they don’t want ‘those people’ in their neighborhood/town.
remember from movie Blues Brothers? that ratty tenement place Jake & Elwood stayed in? like trailer parks, a lot of people used to live in places like that. even though there would be plenty of people wanting space in one now, try opening even a nice flop house in 2015.
not everyone belongs in single family homes with single-acre zoning, yet even those are hard to find. the san francisco bay area is quite expensive, yet look at a map to see how much of marin county & the east bay are parks, reserves, wildlife refuges, etc. while california does have unique geological issues, not *all* of that land is unsuitable to build on!
the above does not just apply to flop houses & trailer parks. anywhere you find a shortage of something: housing, water, bandwidth, etc, you can find a regulator sitting on their fat butt right in the middle of everything telling people why they can’t get to work making money by satisfying needs of the marketplace.
Uh oh, you are stating facts when it is certain that the people who post here only want to hear how the evil rich are “taking advantage” of the “poor”. Ready yourself for the nasty comments that will be heading your way 🙂
Still, it is refreshing to see that there are some people who visit this site who are intelligent, and can think.
Hope to see more of your comments in the future.
As the government makes the middle class poor it creates the double edged effect of squeezing both the poor and the middle class. This affect has been seen throughout history as a prelude to war, and each time it happens the common man never recognizes the correlation between population, profit and the reduction it creates within the most historically free willed people within human structure; the middle class if wise at all are in search of a soul, that alone is an individual journey between God and man. Men of power search for power, the poor look to be fed, clothed and taken care of without a real care in the world.
It is those of us that worked hard our entire lives just to gain a moment of peace, and the more we search for the truth the more we are squeezed from both ends. The prayer of the day is WAKE UP! Yet few of us now because of the continued attacks on our principles are hard pressed to even find the strength to reach out to those unlike us.
In the land of plenty of mud the government pushes up the price of building land and the only way out for some is to become debt slaves and spending the next 30 years paying for a carboard box.
One day of revolt by all the sheep would see that turned around in a day and all it will cost is the heads of a few bankers and politicians.
People you forget it is our land, time to take it back
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/32-families-face-eviction-with-sale-of-kirkland-mobile-home-park/
32 families face eviction with sale of Kirkland mobile-home park
A developer plans to build 19 high-end homes on the site of a mobile-home park in Kirkland that’s home to 32 families. Many are seniors and on fixed incomes. Four are veterans. Two are disabled. And there are young families with children.
They will get relocation assistance.
It’s not easy to see this kind of thing happen, but is the landowner supposed to collect a few hundred dollars a month from 32 renters when he’s surrounded by $800,000 homes on $300,000 lots?
Want to prevent this? Build a trailer park and never sell it. Get it zoned for special tax rates for low-income housing, or you’ll be forced to sell anyway.
Yes and the oligarchs will continue to plunder ,loot, and tax the (ever growing) serfs whilst entertaining them with non stop sports, hollywood, and vast forms of entertainment as they continue deeper in debt for their iphones and latest wide screen tvs to watch you tube and the kardashians…
Comfortably numb…
possee
There isn’t any such thing as a good renter. Those trailer park renters could get rid of their bulldogs and save enough on dog food to buy their own place. I hd a pretty nice house trailer gave to me. We went and put tires on it. I hooked my farm tractor to it and moved it no problem. I sold it to another neighbor and moved it to their place. They let their low life wigger daughter and her niglets move into it.
LMAO!
Beg pardon, but I was a good renter, a landlords dream! I have the paperwork to prove it…good renters are rare, but they are out there. I rented,both apartments, mobile homes and section 8, over the course from 1975 to 2002. I always cleaned up and renovated where needed and allowed, and one homeowner gave us first dibs on buying the property we were living in, cuz he was selling it to build a new restaurant. He was able to double his money cuz of my hard work. My ex husband didn’t want the responsibility of home ownership so we moved into a 1973 trailer, that we fixed up. He sold it after I left for good in 1995 and got his money back and then some. Didn’t any of it to me and the kids….greedy piece of work. Anyway, I’ve renovated another two places sine then, and the homeowners were thrilled. Just goes to show we are out there, but few in number….
The government subsidizes rent for the poor. Good intentions with not always good results.
That’s funny old guy niglets ha ha ha I like that ha haha anyway mobile homes are not very popular around here but of course there out there and they usually attract the worst people because their affordability. The people that have them usually don’t own the dirt under them so they rent it. This is the biggest negative to owning one usually unless you own the property under it your living under someone else’s rules. I don’t see a middle class of folks anymore looks like the public assistance people and the workers that do everything society is such a failure to me my state is always looking for ways to steal my $ through taxation to fund these pet projects it pisses me off that they force progress on people who are happy with a simple life and write the checks out of our accounts. I can sit here and tell you all the dumb plans they have but it would be like writing a book. I’m moving as soon as possible I can’t stand it here anymore.
These scummy landlords need to be forced to live in the street. Do they have names and addresses ? Send em a Christmas card.
Trailer Parks can become a drug infested and crime reddened hell hole. I have one about 3/8ths of a mile from me and Fire and Rescue are called twice a month to render assistance. Like Old Guy states, they have their Pit Bulls for status and drive around in vehicles that look like moving accidents. Every so often you see people’s belonging out on the street from being evicted.
Same goes for the Sec.8 housing. People rent these homes and have no interest in the upkeep. They just tear things up. Family has a couple of animals and a few children and the inside of the home has to be gutted. Seen it happen in about two years occupancy, low income home.
Agree: most of these people are not poor in the sense of not having money but are low-lifes in the sense of having no taste or respect for how they behave. At Xmas time I went for a walk with my mother and we went down a street of public housing: those little concrete shit boxes with a tiny garden in front. It used to be 100 per cent white in the 70s/80s but now it is majority black. Usually there are gang kids hanging around all hours doing drug deals and one was shot in a drive-by a few weeks ago.
But it was Xmas so I was in good spirits and enjoying the lights and the snow. Then went past one yard: they had toys and playsets stacked all over the place (plastic slides etc.) so not short the cash for this stuff but they also had a pitbull: and that pitbull shat all over everything: the yard was nothing but a sea of turds smeared all around the toys. So the kids play in the snow and the turds: nice!!!
Still the stereotypical slander against those living in trailer parks goes on, trailer trash and so forth. I am not ashamed to say I have been living in a “trailer” for the past 12 years. It is the only shelter I can afford, and like the article mentions it is becoming unaffordable by much too high lot rent increases every year. One owns the dwelling, yet the lot rent is more than an apartment was just a few years back. I’m in Florida and can’t even afford to run the air conditioner, but being a native the heat and humidity I can handle. Electric bills around 27 dollars a month are nice. Hey I can sweat with the best of them, the oldies that is. These greedy trailer park owners have dollar signs for eyes and can’t wait for each year to roll around to sick it to their “renters”. This park is mostly inhabited by creepy snowbirds who flood down to escape the cold and annoy the hell out of year rounders, then scoot out at the first 85 degree day. They pay all year to only stay a few months. I can see a makeshift shack in the woods in my future. Aint America great!
There is nothing wrong with trailers. As long as you keep the yard clean and the grass mowed they are fine. I know lots of people that are well to do that live in Mobile Homes. They are smart enough not to pay $2000 to $3000 or more for a House a month.
I built expensive Homes for many years and at closing I told lot”s of my buyers that they were crazy for getting in hock for hundreds of thousands of dollars for 30 years just for a place to live. Nothing but ego. People wanted my Homes because they were quality built and landscaped and they were Beautiful Homes on Magnificent Lot”s. I do appreciate their wanting my Homes but to pay $2500.00 to $5000.00 a month for a place to live is just plum crazy in my opinion.
Terrible – Terrible!!!! I guess these “poor people” should have prepared a little better. “Because it’s all about that Prep, no trouble, it’s all about that prep, no trouble.”
There is no such thing as ever retiring in the immediate future. We will work till we die. I even named my truck which I work in “My Coffin”.
Point being that there is no future. Only the strong and prepped will survive the next decade. And that is if you are lucky. So quit living like you can expect anything but a horrible existence in the future. Live for today and prep for tomorrow.
BigB
These neighborhoods are growing in direct proportion to the deindustrialization of US manufacturing caused by Tariff Free trade with third world fueled surf labor and the subsequent evisceration of the US Middle Class.
One can say these trailer parks are better than the inner city which coincidently are largely casualties of the above also. Many like Camden NJ, a city that has the dubious distinction of being two decades ahead of its time having exported its employment in the 1960s and 70s.
The symptom is being confused with the cause.
My sister and her husband own a trailer park, they inherited from his father. They charge $430/month(the lowest in our area) for rent. They are operated as a 55YO or older park/ no dogs, and very strict financial requirements to get into the park, so they avoid most of the normal park issues. Anyone who thinks running a ‘nice’ park is easy is dead wrong. No matter how nice you to try to run the park, there’s always that 5% trash that ruins it for everyone, especially the owner.
They are consently getting letters from investment groups(usually from FL) looking to buy their park. One of these days they will sell and the tenants will be in for a very big surprise when they see how a park is run when all the owner cares abount is money.
Lots of good remarks on here…from both sides.
Well, I can speak from both sides. I lived in a trailer for a couple years after a divorce until I got the house and support settled up and got back on my feet. Gold diggin’ women are problems…but that’s another story.
I had to fix everything that broke or wore out because the landlord only came around on rent day. I finally told him that I would be holding my rent in escrow until he agreed to reimburse my expenses.
I also bought a trailer for rental purposes several years later. I gutted it and completely renovated it myself before I rented it out.
Being a landlord was one of the worst business experiences I ever had. I could not get good renters. They never paid rent on time or even close. They simply disregarded rules, like no inside pets. They ruined the place. They called in the middle of the night for stupid shit, like a clogged drain (NOT a landlord’s responsibility). You could not evict them without miles of red tape and hoops to jump through.
After a few years, I sold the place. Never again.
I got a call once about a light bulb having burned out, would I come and replace it?
I’ll never be a landlord again, either. Guy up the street just rented out his parent’s house, the deposit was $2,000. His attorney told him that’s becoming more common, $1,000 and up damage deposits, because the renting public is not who they used to be.
A higher security deposit also helps weed out the riffraff.
The timeless pit of the haves against the have not’s continues. It will soon end once the dollar collapses and we reach a reset in this country…..along with a crap load of bloodshed.
What made America great was the ownership of land. Owning a trailer parked on some one elses land is just like owning a vehicle the trailer isn’t real property its personal property. Something changes inside someone when they own there home and the land its on. The become better citizens, better neighbors, and better persons. Where I moved away from. this guy took 30 acres and installed a rental trailer on every 5 acres. and in a short time it was mostly criminals, druggies ect. Then there was a homicide. the trailer where the homicide was burned before the crime scene tape was a day old. pretty soon all those trailers burned. cured the problem. and I have liven in house trailers. however I owned the trailer and the land. I bought a house and moved. We still own that place and it will never be for rent.
What people also need to think about is what has been going on with property taxes, at least where I’m at. I make my living off of all the rental property I own. Do the management, maintenance, leasing and so on my self. Biggest expense is property tax, it’s 30% of my gross income. Then I have to pay mortgage, insurance, utilities and material costs. The county has been consistently raising our property valuations at about 10% a year. This year, it has gone up 80% for many of the properties surrounding me, mine increased 20%. While I always protest mine, it doesn’t do much good. These guys you see walking around in the video, they hire everything out, so their profit margin is very slim. I’ve seen many a person fail doing what they are – expecting they can just keep bumping the rent up 5 to 10% a year thinking they are going to get rich. The property taxes can end up eating all of their profit and more. Seen it many times around me, there’s a lot of turn over in the larger properties around me. It get the feeling the investor guiding the tours is trying to unload some of his property.
Pretty soon people will be living in caves, if they can find one.
The poor mans bunker
Confederate
To be a Troglodyte again. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
Another reason house rent is going higher is a shortage of rent houses created by millions of illegal immigrants flooding the USA and competing for housing. Ship them all back and landlords will be begging for tenants.
The flaw is not capitalism. The flaw is the destruction of morality as demanded by Marx & Engles. It is true that culprit 1 is the Federal Reserve and its creation of fiat currency but the owners who put their greed ahead of the command to “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself” are not absolved of their own responsibility.
The bankers and politicians have no one to blame but themselves when the day comes that they can no longer emerge from their luxurious safe room prisons for fear of execution. I will not pity them.
We all worked real hard, all of our lives, endured many hardships., heartaches and stress filled days, for the Day to come, that “We Die !”.
I lost my mobile home along with about 40% of the other residents in the mobile home park I lived in. The owner just kept raising the rents until the homeowners were forced out. Moving a mobile home is not a realistic option. It costs many thousands of dollars which most people can’t afford. Also, once a home is 10 or 12 years old, other parks won’t accept it. Finally, even if you can afford to buy land, the zoning restrictions make it very difficult and/or expensive to put it the home on that land. Advice – Don’t ever put your home or your property on land that you do not own. You are asking to be ripped off. I learned a very valuable (but costly) lesson.
Proverbs 24:3
By wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established;
Psalms 127:1
Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.
Deuteronomy 8:12 otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them,
Jeremiah 22:13-14
“Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness And his upper rooms without justice, Who uses his neighbor’s services without pay And does not give him his wages, Who says, ‘I will build myself a roomy house With spacious upper rooms, And cut out its windows, Paneling it with cedar and painting it bright red.’
Haggai 1:9
“You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away Why?” declares the LORD of hosts, “Because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.
Haggai 1:4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?”
Amos 5:11
Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor And exact a tribute of grain from them, Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, Yet you will not live in them; You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine.
Hebrews 3:4
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Proverbs 24:27
Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.
Psalm 41:1
Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him;
America is doomed! Just except it.. Its time to hit the reset button and start a new!