John McCarthy

The "mobile home" piece was excellent, except for the apparent enthusiasm for the remedy of a "right of first refusal" for tenants of a mobile home park. This "remedy" would be a cruel pretense of hope. Probably, it's a "reform" that the predators actually SUPPORT, because it'd delude legislators into thinking they'd addressed the problem, and thereby forestall a real remedy. Think of the contenders when, say, the Carlyle Group offers $5 million to the landowner to buy him out. In one corner: Carlyle, with untold millions in cash and credit lines. Their offer: "we will pay cash in full in 30 days." In the other corner: the shocked & unsophisticated crowd of "home" owners, who must (among much else) produce a counter offer dependent on: 1. Organizing among themselves to DO anything at all. 2. Creating a financial analysis that makes sense to them. 3. Jointly finding & paying a lawyer who's up to the job 4. Convincing a bank of the creditworthiness of the just-created group of terrified, income-strapped mobile home residents, buy an appraisal, etc etc etc.....ad nauseam etc's,...produce their own meager financial data as collateral....etc. And all of this while the Carlyle suits smirk among themselves at the poor ants running frantically on the frying pan.... The "right" of first refusal would be a cruel sham.