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'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

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Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#111

Post by s1artibartfast »

ethanbond wrote: post #95
s1artibartfast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect information has nothing to do with fair There's a difference between false information and no information.

False information like Q: Who is buying this land? A: XYZ Shell Corp (no connection to who is actually effectively buying and coming into control of this land)? Obviously your argument will be "it's not false that XYZ Shell Corp is buying it," and sure, but it's obviously misleading in a way that affects the transaction, as it is specifically designed to do.

I don't even think it's misleading. You don't know what XYZ show Corp does or will do with the land. It's a mystery not a deception.

On the other hand, if the buyer is called XYZ Fun Center and tells you that they're going to put in a nonprofit for Orphans, that would be deception.

It all comes back to the idea that saying I won't tell you what I'm going to do with the purchase is not a lie. It's perfectly honest

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#112

Post by tiahura »

thebooktocome wrote: post #73
gamblor956 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers aren't allowed to identify their clients if the identities of their clients are unknown. It's part of attorney-client privilege. Skadden has made use of in the past to hide their work for Putin affiliates. It's the reason that Skadden is the largest firm by revenue despite the lackluster quality of their work. (For an example of how bad Skadden is at the practice of law, see the clusterfuck that is the Twitte…

Mere identity is not usually covered under attorney-client privilege, I’m not sure why you think it would be. Here’s a semi-recent analysis of the situation. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2020/05/fifth...

I’m not sure why you think it would be.

Probably because it is confidential and most people, and many attorneys, don’t understand that privilege and confidentiality are terms of art with distinct meanings.

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#114

Post by Tempest1981 »

riskable wrote: post #63
whalesalad wrote: post #4

If this land is so precious to our national defense, why wasn't the land already owned by the federal government? Eminent domain is the uno reverse card here.

I don't think it's that simple: The US Air Force doesn't give a damn if some farmer buys up nearby land and uses it for farming . They do care if it's a foreign entity trying to use bulk land purchases to spy on or otherwise harm the United States or its people. The real problem here is the lack of transparency in ownership of corporations in the United States. If corporations weren't allowed to buy--then keep--other…

So do what the Zuckerbergs did, and buy the 4 neighboring homes, and lease them back to the previous owners.

https://sfist.com/2013/10/11/mark_zuckerberg_buys_house_next...

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#115

Post by Loquebantur »

kasey_junk wrote: post #99
Loquebantur wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your logic, insider trading would be just fine. For a market to function properly, information pertinent to traded value has to flow freely. The more you stifle that, the more rigged the market. Essentially, you sustain a monopoly that way. Of course, people in possession of such "insider information" believe themselves in the right to profit from it. But that perspective is obviously biased and reveals a fundamen…

In the US (but not necessarily other jurisdictions), insider trading laws are not there to protect the broader market, but to protect other shareholders. There is no assumption that you can’t trade on knowledge unavailable to the rest of the market just not information that should be available to other shareholders but isn’t. It’s not about a working market it’s about preventing you from stealing from other people. L…

Lots of economists are clearly wrong, as mutually excluding statements cannot be simultaneously true. To find out which side is which, you can employ simple logic.

If you sustain a profitable information imbalance, you prevent the market from reaching a more efficient state. You steal from everybody else that way. And incur opportunity costs that will dwarf any profits made. Not necessarily on a short-term personal level, certainly on a societal one in the long run.

People have surprising difficulties understanding, they are that society.

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#116

Post by s1artibartfast »

pohl wrote: post #87
s1artibartfast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect information has nothing to do with fair There's a difference between false information and no information.

It has everything to do with price, however — and, therefore, "fair price".

Define fair price?

Fair prices when a buyer and seller agreed to as long as no one's lying. The fair price has nothing to do with how much money the buyer or seller make more lose.

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#117

Post by paxys »

> But after eight months of investigation, government officials have been unable to identify who's behind it nor rule out any threat to national security.

If nothing else this should be an indicator of how broken the land & real estate purchase system is in the US. We are literally the only country in the world that has no controls and no visibility over having large chunks of our territory bought out by a foreign resident, foreign business or even a foreign government.

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#118

Post by paxys »

jeffbee wrote: post #11

This is an incredibly silly story. Everything about this ownership is in public records. Flannery Assoc. has been openly buying land in this are for over 5 years and have spent over a billion dollars and sued dozens of parties. Everyone knows what they are doing. They want to lease the land for energy infrastructure.

"Flannery Associates LLC" is a name on a legal document. That name has zero bearing when you are looking for who actually owns and controls the land. Who are the people making decisions? Who pays them? Where is the money coming from? Is a foreign government involved?

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#119

Post by avmich »

nerdponx wrote: post #89
avmich wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will gladly name themselves when you ask them on which grounds they want to stop your heavy equipment messing around their properties. They will bring all necessary papers to you. I guess you won't leave until they'll make it absolutely clear that they have the right to demand you to leave.

Are you speaking from first-hand experience?

Doesn't it seem like a common sense? Can't government use this way to learn about the owners?

Re: 'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns

#120

Post by bamfly »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #116
pohl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has everything to do with price, however — and, therefore, "fair price".

Define fair price? Fair prices when a buyer and seller agreed to as long as no one's lying. The fair price has nothing to do with how much money the buyer or seller make more lose.

When I read your comment above, I wondered if you'd gotten here by defining "fair" circularly.

And... yep.

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