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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

#41

Post by vegetablepotpie »

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.

You got to wonder if this is the PR component of a campaign to stop new energy development in the US. Another component is the political theater. Some municipalities are passing ordinances preventing Solar, for example, Eloy AZ would remove water rights to farmers who install solar on their property [1].

[1] https://www.pinalcentral.com/eloy_enterprise/commentary-tell...

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

#42

Post by jonathankoren »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #8

I find it hard to believe if the Military was actually worried about this they would be going about it by having a House rep blast his mouth about it on local news.

You think the military controls every elected dope? What country do you think this is?

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

#43

Post by koolba »

jonathankoren wrote: post #34
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?

Price gouged? Don't you mean, fair market value? Price is always contingent based on the information shared between the buyer and seller. No one would call selling a rare misprint 1978 US Quarter to a collector for $45,000 instead of 25 cents price gouging. (Maybe you would, I don't know what the going rate is. But this is literally an eBay auction price from a google search just now, so let's just say that it's not…

> Price gouged? Don't you mean, fair market value? Price is always contingent based on the information shared between the buyer and seller.

Since when? Buying and selling anything is always a game of imperfect information.

There’s nothing special about the buyer being a large corporation or the item being land.

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

#44

Post by mistermann »

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.

Also, if this is a genuine risk to be concerned about (as was the Cuban Missile Crisis), then why[1] are similar concerns out of Russia "not objective/logical/valid"?

[1] No "correct by definition" memes, please. Imagine that you are writing code and thus have to be logical, exhaustively if you want to achieve correctness.

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

#45

Post by jeffbee »

epistasis wrote: post #27
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.

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.

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

#46

Post by gamblor956 »

The company is suing people for talking to each other about the company and demanding more money for their farms that the company is/was trying to buy. There is no legal justification for this lawsuit; it's a legal shakedown to try and drain their targets' resources so that they're compelled to sell below-market to avoid bankruptcy.

Also known as the modus operandi for Skadden Arps, the most morally bankrupt firm in the country. Skadden's "illustrious" client list includes Elmo (they advised him on the strategy of forcing terminated employees into arbitration and then refusing to pay arbitration fees), organized crime, and multiple individuals and entities known to be KGB affiliates and Putin allies (Skadden has paid hefty fines for illegal lobbying on behalf of the Putin regime...multiple times.)

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

#48

Post by fnimick »

koolba wrote: post #43
jonathankoren wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price gouged? Don't you mean, fair market value? Price is always contingent based on the information shared between the buyer and seller. No one would call selling a rare misprint 1978 US Quarter to a collector for $45,000 instead of 25 cents price gouging. (Maybe you would, I don't know what the going rate is. But this is literally an eBay auction price from a google search just now, so let's just say that it's not…

> Price gouged? Don't you mean, fair market value? Price is always contingent based on the information shared between the buyer and seller. Since when? Buying and selling anything is always a game of imperfect information. There’s nothing special about the buyer being a large corporation or the item being land.

And shouldn't you support having as much information be available as possible, or do you want people to play games and try to hide info to raise prices on people?

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

#49

Post by avmich »

> Even after eight months of investigation, Garamendi says federal authorities are still struggling to get those answers.

What if somebody moves a few bulldozers to that land and start raising an obstacle which would be convenient to protect AFB from spying? I highly suspect somebody will show up and demand this to stop. That guy should be questioned - who he is and on what grounds he's managing the property. This will likely lead towards the owners.

Can the beneficiaries be contacted this way, if other ways fail for months?

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

#50

Post by numbsafari »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #21
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…

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 the sellers be shortchanged?
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