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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

So you are saying, when someone has enough money, others MUST sell to them, because maybe it is beneficial for the economy?

"What's more, the billionaires are clearly offering a clearly profitable deal for everyone, specifically so that nobody has an excuse to refuse "

When I like my land and I don't want to sell, than this is simply my right, no matter how much you think I have no excuse.

Building important infrastructure or mining critical ressources are rare exceptions for forced landsell, but not because someone wants to build a city for the rich on my land.

So sure, it is a tricky problem to buy from many owners, but getting the government to help you with your private project to force a contract on other people is kind of the definition of corruption.

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> When I like my land and I don't want to sell, than this is simply my right, no matter how much you think I have no excuse.

I guess in this case they do want to sell it, they just know that the ‘billionaires’ having already bought a bunch of land in the area don’t really have a choice and will have to pay significantly more than the market value was previously.

It’s not exactly a case of some mega corporation trying to rip off some poor farmer and “steal” his land…

> build a city for the rich on my land.

Not that I’m saying that the government should get involved but the only reason you own that land is because want to make as much money from it as possible.

Pretty ironic that Laurene Powell Jobs is:

- a major investor in this project

- who got her money from Apple

- which makes a killing gouging you on cables with proprietary charging ports and dongles because their laptops/phones didn't have ports, and thus were forced to buy at a ridiculous price

- and is now mad she was forced to pay a ridiculous price for something

I’d say their price gouging for RAM/Storage is even more egregious since lightning was way better than micro-USB back in the day. But yeah (then again you seem to be blaming Apple both for adopting USB-C and not adopting it at the same time?)

If I own a sizeable stake in a public company, and I see that a billionaire is doing a hostile takeover, am I wrong to demand a higher price?

This is a risk of doing a massive land purchase like this. The seller is absolutely in the right to hold out as long as they want, and to maximize their profit.

If they won't sell, build around them.

You definitely have a point and more or less agree.

However this is one of the many reasons why there are housing shortages in many areas.

> However this is one of the many reasons why there are housing shortages in many areas.

Yes, wealth inequality and land development practices are reasons why housing is in such short supply.

But it is hard to proof, if someone just wants to make more money (which is legitimate), or if they genuinly want to keep the land. And government Intervention in those cases seem just recipe for corruption.

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