Oh, so NOW the feds have a problem with secret corporate ownership.
Maybe let's do something to limit the onshore tax havens in Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada....
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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When you own a piece of land, the feds own you, when you own all the land, you own the feds.
If Travis AFB is truly that concerned about it, why haven’t they simply bought the land instead? It’s the military; We all know they have literal billions of dollars to waste. Instead of complaining about some mystery investor purchasing the land, why not purchase it yourselves and incorporate it into the AFB?
The military isn't just allowed to buy up land willy nilly without oversight and direction from civilian officials. Do you remember when Clinton closed hundreds and thousands of military sites back in the '90s?
So they don't really get to decide on basic expansions solely within the military. And generally speaking, the military doesn't spend unnecessary money to expand military bases and provide a buffer zone around land that isn't used for bombing ranges and whatnot. Travis appears to be just a typical Air Force air base with a couple of runways.
However, these articles point toward other very shady acts going on including the proposed 400 ft tall observation Tower to oversee the airbase. Why would a farming operation or a land investor want an observation tower to overlook an Air Force Base?
Last year 300 acres of farmland were purchased near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Garamendi called it a '"spy base."
"That base is where we launch our airplanes to figure out what's going on across the world," he said. "A company in China was acquiring land around that base and wanted to build a 400-foot silo that could look directly into the base... and we were like 'whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on there?'"
So this company is not just buying up land around one military base, they're doing it at several. As well as land along energy distribution corridors for the Pacific Northwest to California which is very strange. None of this land is very valuable, so why are they spending 10 times market value to acquire it?
The 400ft tall silo was near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and was known to be owned by a company from China
None of that has any tie to the company that bought land near Travis AFB
Land purchased by a Chinese company near one US AFB doesn't logically imply that any purchased land near a US AFB is a Chinese spy operation
Yeah I'd be a bit concerned of something around minot afb myself... used to be stationed there back in the early 2000's
Yeah a 400ft tall silo overlooking Minot AFB is concerning. It also has nothing to do with OPs article about Travis AFB
China does enough shady shit that we don't need baseless accusations being thrown around
I see, thank you for correcting me. It does look like these two entities purchasing land are separate, although it is not impossible for them to both be funded by China.
I suppose the best option would be to decide to expand the fan, condemn the land, and take it over using eminent domain for assessed value on the tax records.
Quick somebody find a way to link this to China so we can get the GOP to start yelling about limiting foreign investment in US real estate. With a little luck we might can wrangle this into something that will lower the cost of housing.
Have we tried building more housing? I know radical idea.
Yeah, it keeps getting bought up and turned into airbnbs.
If you allow land to be turned into an investment opportunity why would anyone whos got that kind of money put a regular house there and sell it when they could just make it a permanent investment at the cost of other people not being able to buy houses to live in.
This is the real issue right here. It's more than just Airbnb's, though, it's all 'investment real estate'.
The solution would be to exponentially increase taxes for those who own multiple properties, but property tax is typically handled on the county level, so this would be tricky. Also, the people who could implement such a tax all own multiple properties, so there's a conflict of interest there.
Canada is struggling with this at the moment. It's a great idea on paper, but our development style is unsustainable and we simply can't keep up with demand. Not to mention that build costs are up 50% since 2020.
Affordable, efficient housing that is close to amenities is what is needed, but supplying that is quite unlikely given build costs and North America's infatuation with the suburb.
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There's a good chance that China was a one harassing US Navy warships a few years ago.
Not definitive however.
Lowering retail investment will not lower the cost of housing - quite the opposite.
Others have pointed out that the purchased land is predicted to remain farmable when other regions in California become too dry to farm.
However, them suing landowners for not selling points to either extreme greed or a project that may necessitate having a contiguous portion of land.
Really? Most of this land looks like it is marginal land that is not very productive for anything. It's very low lying, around 0 to 1 ft above sea level and much of that area is actually tidal flats protected by dikes from the bay.
I've driven around the bay before, and there's a lot of shitty land around it that's basically not used for anything. I wouldn't even want to own a house along that area because it will be underwater within 20 or 30 years anyways.
This has been posted multiple times and it has been pointed out each time that the company isn’t really a mystery.
For example:
The company isn't a mystery, however the ownership, leadership, and investors of the company are unknown.
Only the lawyers are known so far.
OK, so if the company isn't a mystery, then who are their owners or directors? Where did they get $800 million?
Travis isn't even the best base in California to spy on. Beale AFB is just up the road and has more interesting shit.
I live up the road from Beale and there is always weird shit going on there.
I always hear the old lady from Beavis and butthead do America when I hear the name Travis
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What if it's a wealthy Native American just buying their land back? Probably not, but it would be peak irony
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