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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

#151

Post by detourdog »

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.

I just have to point out Disney was paying top dollar for swamp land. The whole deal worked because Florida and Disney invented a public private partnership based on Reedy Creek.

I’m not 100% sure but I believe the model is what birthed HOA and Gated communities.

Permitting certain freedoms made swamp land more valuable.

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

#152

Post by jonathankoren »

danpalmer wrote: post #131
jonathankoren wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did you know that all his sub cutaways are drawn in MS PAINT? It’s amazing to watch.

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

#153

Post by sneak »

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…

They don't let you hide it from the IRS, only the general public.

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

#154

Post by anigbrowl »

comfypotato wrote: post #146
anigbrowl wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

As if any negotiating business isn’t “deceitful”. You’re basically arguing for discrimination to be legal.

It isn't. I can ask for what I want in a negotiation and accept or reject counter-offers, as can my counterparty. I've never set out to deceive someone in such a situation. I don't know why you're trying to equate Disney with some downtrodden minority, but it's not very persuasive.

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

#155

Post by epistasis »

jeffbee wrote: post #45
epistasis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Though I think that legal entities like this need to have far far more public documentation of beneficial ownership, traceable all the way back to real people, be they US citizens or not. This goes doubly so for any sort of land ownership. Nobody should be able to hide ownership of US land via shell games.

I'm fine with it as long as your standard also applies to family trusts. LLCs are relatively open compared to trusts. I also think people greatly overestimate the opacity of land ownership records. I just download all of the parcel maps, assessments, tax bills, and ownership data from my county assessor every year. Then people are amazed that I can answer easy question about who owns what. It seems simple to me.

Agreed on this too. A favorite hobby of mine is to look up the land ownership of people that speak at city meetings to oppose land use changes that would allow for more housing in an area.

A huge fraction of the people decrying new homes already own many parcels directly in their own name. And if the opponent is decrying "these apartments aren't affordable enough" you can be pretty sure to find a recent apartment ad renting a worse apartment at a higher price.

Which is funny, since using an LLC per parcel is probably a better strategy for the nasty landlord behavior.

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

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #133
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 again…

> Why? If there are legitimate issues, you can always be dragged into court,

One of the major reasons for concealing who the real owner is of, well, anything is to conceal legitimate issues.

> or at least your business can be boycotted and suffer bad PR etc.

Not if you are concealing ownership to separate an act from the business entity that you would be concerned with retaliation against.

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

#158

Post by anigbrowl »

vinceguidry wrote: post #142
anigbrowl wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

> 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. Heh. On swampland ? The amount of money you need to do anything with it is just huge. They bought the land for exactly what others were willing to sell it for. Nothing more, nothing less. If they thought it was worth more, they would have held o…

And they made a huge commercial success out of it, as you originally pointed out. None of which is responsive the point that one should not engage in misrepresentation and deception, which undermine the competitive function of markets.

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

#159

Post by solumunus »

vinceguidry wrote: post #142
anigbrowl wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

> 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. Heh. On swampland ? The amount of money you need to do anything with it is just huge. They bought the land for exactly what others were willing to sell it for. Nothing more, nothing less. If they thought it was worth more, they would have held o…

They would have realised it was worth more if the true demand wasn’t obfuscated.

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

#160

Post by comfypotato »

anigbrowl wrote: post #154
comfypotato wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if any negotiating business isn’t “deceitful”. You’re basically arguing for discrimination to be legal.

It isn't. I can ask for what I want in a negotiation and accept or reject counter-offers, as can my counterparty. I've never set out to deceive someone in such a situation. I don't know why you're trying to equate Disney with some downtrodden minority, but it's not very persuasive.

The laws are in place in part because of discrimination. It happens to be Disney in this case.

You confirmed that you’re dishonest by omission in your example. The fact that a counteroffer exists shows that it’s not implied you were forthwith with the price/value. Making/receiving a counteroffer implies that there was deceit, it’s just culturally acceptable deceit. If negotiations were completely honest, there would never be a counteroffer. Some Native American tribes were known for this sort of negotiation where the bottom line is stated and then accepted or rejected. They were often offended, by the implied dishonesty, by European’s counteroffers.

Extended to this situation, hiding an identity because it affects the business decisions of the other party is no different. (And I won’t continue the discussion if you want to defend your assertion that Disney is morally wrong here for being dishonest by omission.)

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