The front page of Sunday’s New York Times has a story titled “Who Owns the West?”
A couple of billionaires, that’s who.
The U.S. used to be the Land of Opportunity.
Now it is the Land of the Oligarchs.
IDAHO CITY, Idaho — The Wilks brothers grew up in a goat shed, never finished high school and built a billion-dollar fracking business from scratch.
So when the brothers, Dan and Farris, bought a vast stretch of mountain-studded land in southwest Idaho, it was not just an investment, but a sign of their good fortune.
“Through hard work and determination — and they didn’t have a lot of privilege — they’ve reached success,” said Dan Wilks’s son, Justin.
The purchase also placed the Wilkses high on the list of well-heeled landowners who are buying huge parcels of America. In the last decade, private land in the United States has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Today, just 100 families own about 42 million acres across the country, a 65,000-square-mile expanse, according to the Land Report, a magazine that tracks large purchases. Researchers at the magazine have found that the amount of land owned by those 100 families has jumped 50 percent since 2007.
Much of that land stretches from the Rocky Mountains down into Texas, where, for some, commercial forests and retired ranches have become an increasingly attractive investment.
Battles over private and public land have been a defining part of the West since the 1800s, when the federal government began doling out free acres to encourage expansion. For years, fights have played out between private individuals and the federal government, which owns more than half of the region.
But now, with wealthier buyers purchasing even larger parcels, the battle lines have shifted. Many local residents see these new owners as a threat to a way of life beloved for its easy access to the outdoors, and they complain that property that they once saw as public is being taken away from them.
The Wilkses, who now own some 700,000 acres across several states, have become a symbol of the out-of-touch owner. In Idaho, as their property has expanded, the brothers have shuttered trails and hired armed guards to patrol their acres, blocking and stymying access not only to their private property, but also to some publicly owned areas. This has drawn ire from everyday Idahoans who have hiked and hunted in those hills for generations.
This is just what happened to Rome before the collapse–the small farms that had provided the farm boys who made up the legions of Roman soldiers were replaced by latiundia, vast tracts of land owned by the wealthy few, the forerunners of Medieval feudal estates. This concentration of wealth, income, and ownership marked the beginning of the end for the Empire.
Cain’t be havin no big GUBMINT own everything.
These two billionaire brothers may see this land a long term investment. Idaho is known as the “gem state.” It is also a leading producer of silver, zinc and lead. The price of real estate in Idaho has increased a great deal in the past five years. Many Californians are moving to Idaho. They are moving for a better quality of life and wide open spaces. Some Californians are also moving due to the many natural disasters occurring in the state. This shift is causing a real estate boom in Idaho. BTW, HGTV has a house flipping show called “The Boise Boys.” I was surprised to see renovated homes selling between $500,000 and a million dollars.
Ada County includes Boise. Why if the property taxes have gone up so much is the funding of public schools so bad? Idaho is down at the bottom with Utah.
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Brace yourself: Ada and Canyon tax assessments are coming, and they’re shockers
Sun, May 19, 6:50 PM
Ada County homeowners are in for a big surprise when they get their annual tax assessments as soon as next weekend: Median residential property values have risen by more than at any time in at least 12 years.
Across the county, the median assessed residential property value rose 16.4 percent in 2018, according to new data from the Ada County Assessor’s Office. That compares with about 12 percent in 2017 and 8 percent each in 2016 and 2015.
Eagle had the smallest increase, 12.3 percent. The Boise Bench had the highest, 20.3 percent.
In Canyon County, the story is much the same. The assessed value of homes in urban Nampa rose 15 percent and in urban Caldwell 17 percent, the Canyon County Assessor’s Office reported. A countywide median home price was not available.
Read more here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article230475729.html?#storylink=cpy
Utah just “won–” again–the lowest payment sweepstakes. Idaho was ahead of us for a couple of years, but now Utah is back to lowest. In fact, Utah was the last state to finally reach $7000 per pupil. Utah spends evenly across districts, so property taxes don’t impact the amount much, so that $7000 is pretty much all schools get. And we have MUCH larger class sizes. My classes are routinely 40 or higher (middle school social studies).
Billionaires are “climate-proofing” their future by buying up lands least exposed to runaway forest fires, historic droughts, hundred-year floods year-after-year, and oceans inundating coastal cities and shorelines. They and their children will have at their disposal a wide variety of territories to glide through the climate disasters the rest of us are now facing with more and worse to come. This is one benefit of the 40-yrs of looting behind them, mountains of cash on hand to buy up mountains, as well as to buy the govt. and politicians and policies they want at all levels. The vast looting of public education by the billionaire boys is how this took shape in the school subsector. All in all, doesn’t seem that global warming will in fact wipe out life on earth b/c the billionaire class and their cronies are preparing all they need to weather the storm, so to speak, that is, unless there is a determined militant mass movement to tax and tax their looted assets until they cry uncle, not mere modest tea bites proposed by Elizabeth Warren, good as they might sound.
That’s weird, because ANYWHERE in the west is exposed to out of control fires these days.
There are private armies of armed guards surveilling and patrolling vast swaths of American land? Yikes. Secluded mountain hideouts, armed guards, rockets to Mars… Billionaires have turned into doomsday preppers! That can’t be good. This article reminds me of what Zuckerberg is doing to Hawaii, buying all the land surrounding his land as a buffer zone. It also reminds me of the 1882 political cartoon depicting robber barons carving up the West with knives called, “Let Them Have It All And Be Done With It.” Close all the charter schools in cities and relocate them to the billionaires’ private land, I say. Send DeVos out there too because there will be grizzlies.
Yep. Thee guys come in and buy up huge chunks of land, drive up the taxes and drive out the little guy who can no longer afford his modest lifestyle. Heck. they need all that land for their feudal estates. who is going to do all the work if they drive them all out?
I agree with you. WE SHOULD BE VERY WORRIED!
This is frightening. What is the difference between the billionaires’ land holdings and a feudal estate?
Not much, I’m afraid.
YUP to: “This article reminds me of what Zuckerberg is doing to Hawaii, buying all the land surrounding his land as a buffer zone.”