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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

#61

Post by jzb »

avmich wrote: post #49

> 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 wi…

Shell company lawyer can show up and demand the activity stop. Lawyer doesn’t have to disclose names, they are acting on behalf of the corporate entity.

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

#62

Post by amluto »

costco wrote: post #29

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/201905210181 says a guy named Thomas Mather was a director. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions... is some government application by Flannery that also has his name on it. Looks like this was covered in 2019: https://www.thereporter.com/2019/07/05/large-rural-land-purc... If Mather is not the true owner, it would take the government five seconds to f…

Presumably the company pays the lawyers?

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

#63

Post by riskable »

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 corporations (instead of just absorbing all their assets) this wouldn't be a problem.

Rant: I don't think corporations should be allowed to sell brands that don't include the name of the corporation clearly marked on the packaging. Walmart's Equate products all say they're manufactured by and for Walmart right on the bottle/box/whatever. Every product should be like that. Any and all corporations that own a brand should be on the label. From the bottom all the way to the top. The whole child-parent tree should be present.

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

#64

Post by ethanbond »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #59
numbsafari wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the sellers be shortchanged?

Nobody was short changed. The fair price is what a buyer and seller agreed to unless someone provided false information. The word "no" is a complete answer to a request for more information.

That’s true only if both parties have perfect information, which is of course why Disney went to great lengths to prevent that.

There would be no such thing as fraud if “accepted transaction == definitionally fair.”

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

#65

Post by barbazoo »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #41
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...

Is this all part of the current "culture war" or why would you shoot yourself in the foot like this?

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

#66

Post by avmich »

jzb wrote: post #61
avmich wrote: post #49

> 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 wi…

Shell company lawyer can show up and demand the activity stop. Lawyer doesn’t have to disclose names, they are acting on behalf of the corporate entity.

They have to prove - at least in the court - that they own the property. So the documents are going to surface with the names of the owners.

Actually, I think the registrar of the property could be able to issue a request for documentation leading to the owners or beneficiaries. It's either a physical person - could be talked with - or an organization - which is registered somewhere, and can be similarly contacted.

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

#67

Post by diogocp »

numbsafari wrote: post #50
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 the sellers be shortchanged?

If the increase in value of the sellers' land is wholly due to Disney's development of its land nearby, the sellers would simply be benefiting from a positive externality created by Disney. Thus it would be Disney being shortchanged if it was unable to capture the value of that externality.

From an efficiency standpoint it is also preferable for the developer to capture the value, as naturally that increases incentives for development.

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

#68

Post by s1artibartfast »

ethanbond wrote: post #64
s1artibartfast wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was short changed. The fair price is what a buyer and seller agreed to unless someone provided false information. The word "no" is a complete answer to a request for more information.

That’s true only if both parties have perfect information, which is of course why Disney went to great lengths to prevent that. There would be no such thing as fraud if “accepted transaction == definitionally fair.”

Perfect information has nothing to do with fair

There's a difference between false information and no information.

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

#69

Post by ryandrake »

koolba wrote: post #58
fnimick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> And shouldn't you support having as much information be available as possible, Nope. And arbitrary or subjective standards like that are impossible to enforce anyway. > or do you want people to play games and try to hide info to raise prices on people? The example cited is the reverse with the price being lower than would be demanded if the seller knew the buyer had fat pockets. In either case, caveat emptor[1] (or…

Caveat emptor is a pretty terrible way to run a society. I'd argue if you deliberately misrepresent something as basic as who you are in a transaction in order to deceive your counterparty, that should be fraud.

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

#70

Post by riskable »

jrk wrote: post #36
soupfordummies wrote: post #14

Towards the end of the article is this depressing nugget: " Nearly one in five homes were purchased by investors in early 2023, including LLCs and other corporate entities, according to data compiled by real-estate firm Redfin of more than 40 of the largest U.S. metro areas. "

Nearly every time single old houses in in-demand areas are bought for renovation or redevelopment into denser duplexes, they're "bought by investors, including LLCs and other corporate entities." This doesn't mean 20% of housing stock is being bought and left fallow or anything – this is exactly how densification and redevelopment in response to demand happens. Many of those LLCs are even individuals.

About a quarter of all single-family homes in the US are owned by investors:

https://www.billtrack50.com/blog/investment-firms-and-home-b...

The percentage of investors that buy single-family homes in a given year may rise or fall but the long-term trend is clear: Investors are owning more and more of the total market over time. Actual single families are being priced out.

Some markets are worse than the national statistic and entire neighborhoods are being bought in order to turn every single home into rentals. The New York Times wrote about this last year:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/us/corporate-real-estate-...

It's a very real issue and a few simple changes to the laws in regards to how many single-family homes may be owned by corporations would make a huge impact.

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