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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

#131

Post by danpalmer »

jonathankoren wrote: post #98
unsupp0rted wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are some "usually right" accounts to follow? Ideally ones that aren't plainly designed to spread propaganda of one sort or another.

I haven't been on twitter in months, and now you can't browse the site without logging in. My advice Read the bios. Is it from someone from a real org, or is it just someone with #OSINT in their bio and patreon. Off the top of my head is HI Sutton. He's good for submarines. Rob Lee RALee85 is pretty good as well. Then there's the Jeffrey Lewis (ArmsControlWonk). Pay attention who those people follow. They do this for…

Thanks for the vote of confidence in H I Sutton, I've recently been recommended his videos and wasn't quite sure how seriously to take them, even if they do appear well researched on the surface.

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

#132

Post by danpalmer »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #40
jonathankoren wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of posers on OSINT twitter. You need to be a much more discerning on who you follow. As the meme goes, "I am tired of being an infectious disease expert. Today, I'm a military intelligence expert!"

Who are some "usually right" accounts to follow? Ideally ones that aren't plainly designed to spread propaganda of one sort or another.

Anything that comes out of Bellingcat or those associated with it has been good in my experience, although that's from a layman's point of view. Their now-defunct podcast went into a lot of depth and talked about their methods and it all seems very good.

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

#133

Post by sixstringtheory »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

Setting aside the national security question, more broadly it's pretty insane that the USA lets companies hide who owns/controls them. When you decide to hang out your shingle and profit at the expense of the general public, I would say the general public has a genuine right to know who you are. Reminds me of how Disney used aliases and codenames and shell companies and secretive ownership structures to buy up all th…

> the general public has a genuine right to know who you are

Why? If there are legitimate issues, you can always be dragged into court, or at least your business can be boycotted and suffer bad PR etc.

Being forced to put your home address just so every whacko with internet access can threaten your children, who had no choice in your business decisions, sounds like just a terrible idea.

Try making a false claim against yourself on r/RBI with dox and report back.

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

#134

Post by SideQuark »

Loquebantur wrote: post #115
kasey_junk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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

The world isn't black and white, and nearly zero things as complex as pros and cons of allowing insider trading can be reduced to naive boolean logic.

It is a fact for a long time a lot of economists, perhaps even a majority, are for insider trading because it provides signal to markets and pricing quicker than only allowing investors to discover problems on a quarterly clock-tick, which results in a lot more damage from asset floodgates instead of smoother transitions.

Ever read any published paper on the topic? Use Google scholar, you'll find useful knowledge there.

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

#135

Post by vinceguidry »

anigbrowl wrote: post #106
Negitivefrags wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also an advocate for transparency of ownership of companies, but that Disney example seems like more of a case against transparency than for it? Why should Disney be price gouged in that circumstance?

Why should Disney be price gouged in that circumstance? Because they have money and they're trying to buy out the whole market. This reads like a billionaire sobbing about not having access to a senior discount at the thrift store.

That place was absolutely nothing before Disney developed it. The land was worth exactly what Disney paid for it. And there was no guarantee that it would turn into what it is now. We reward business for taking risks with their money. Disney took an immense amount of it, an absolutely outlandish amount of it. They poured money into that swamp. All on the bet that people would pay through the nose to see Mickey.

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

#136

Post by anigbrowl »

vinceguidry wrote: post #135
anigbrowl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Disney be price gouged in that circumstance? Because they have money and they're trying to buy out the whole market. This reads like a billionaire sobbing about not having access to a senior discount at the thrift store.

That place was absolutely nothing before Disney developed it. The land was worth exactly what Disney paid for it. And there was no guarantee that it would turn into what it is now. We reward business for taking risks with their money. Disney took an immense amount of it, an absolutely outlandish amount of it. They poured money into that swamp. All on the bet that people would pay through the nose to see Mickey.

I'm not complaining about Disney making money off their investment. I'm saying that if a large company wants to make such an investment, it shouldn't dissemble by hiding behind front companies.

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

#137

Post by jstarfish »

mmmBacon wrote: post #88

It kind of amazes me that our government can’t figure out who is behind this. Because it’s extremely hard to hide these kinds of things. When I last moved, there were a few toxic people in my life at the time and I didn’t want them to be able to find my new home. What I found is that it’s exceptionally difficult and expensive to keep this private. I looked at forming an LLC etc… The problem is that it eventually leak…

Some states make this easier than others. I don't remember specifics but from what I remember one major disadvantage to hiding ownership is that you either can't get certain tax deductions or you don't qualify for things like FHA loans (don't remember which).

> This person tried to hide their home purchase for privacy and safety reasons. They had the resources to do this, spent a ton of money, and ultimately failed. You can easily Google their address.

I assume they made the mistake of actually living at that address. You're outed to Equifax and others the second you sign up for utilities as yourself. On paper, you can only remain anonymous if you don't live there...

...but the shadiest people I know use grandmothers' foreign maiden names to sign up for services at properties they obfuscate ownership of. Their "deadname" is kept very much alive after marriage and naturalization if you do this regularly. It amounts to synthetic identity fraud so I doubt any attorney would give this sort of direction.

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

#138

Post by vinceguidry »

anigbrowl wrote: post #136
vinceguidry wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That place was absolutely nothing before Disney developed it. The land was worth exactly what Disney paid for it. And there was no guarantee that it would turn into what it is now. We reward business for taking risks with their money. Disney took an immense amount of it, an absolutely outlandish amount of it. They poured money into that swamp. All on the bet that people would pay through the nose to see Mickey.

I'm not complaining about Disney making money off their investment. I'm saying that if a large company wants to make such an investment, it shouldn't dissemble by hiding behind front companies.

They wouldn't have gotten a fair price otherwise.

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

#139

Post by snyda »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

Setting aside the national security question, more broadly it's pretty insane that the USA lets companies hide who owns/controls them. When you decide to hang out your shingle and profit at the expense of the general public, I would say the general public has a genuine right to know who you are. Reminds me of how Disney used aliases and codenames and shell companies and secretive ownership structures to buy up all th…

Why does "the general public" (whatever that means) have the right to the identity of land buyers?

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

#140

Post by anigbrowl »

vinceguidry wrote: post #138
anigbrowl wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not complaining about Disney making money off their investment. I'm saying that if a large company wants to make such an investment, it shouldn't dissemble by hiding behind front companies.

They wouldn't have gotten a fair price otherwise.

Sure they would. Fair isn't some objective measure, it's what the market decides. If multiple market participants see that one player is trying to corner the market, raising their price is fair. It can equally be argued that those swampland owners bought the land in the first place because they had a vision that it could one day host a unique commercial enterprise.

If your business strategy depends on deceiving people, what does that make you?

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