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the unspoken reasoning for these back-to-work efforts is to stave off a western financial collapse in commercial real estate. https://hbr.org/2024/07/u-s-comme

the unspoken reasoning for these back-to-work efforts is to stave off a western financial collapse in commercial real estate. https://hbr.org/2024/07/u-s-commercial-real-estate-is-headed-toward-a-crisis https://hbr.org/2024/07/u-s-commercial-real-estate-is-headed... after COVID the number of companies that either did not renew commercial leases or defaulted on existing leases jumped significantly. banks saw this and quietly extended commercial leases and relaxed payment dates and penalties to stave off a crisis in 2023. Joe Biden even injected ten billion dollars in assistance to commercial real estate and publicly demanded all federal workers "return to office." the government owns its real estate by and large, so this was largely an expression of solidarity with the landed gentry. moving into 2025...it does not appear to be working. Many corporations are not falling in line to prevent the collapse and instead are seeking short-term gains as they realize massive savings by ditching commercial landlords. productivity and worker satisfaction is also improved. even climate change is impacted positively by work from home efforts. unpopular take: It is (financially) critically important that all workers return to the office. a crash in the commercial real estate sector would cause solvency problems for large cities dependent on cashflow from office workers. the auto sector (repair and sales) would also take a massive hit at a time when Stellantis is facing down a potential bankruptcy. the locus for most states in terms of homeless outreach and drug treatment is their city, which would receive serious cutbacks at a time when the opioid and fentanyl crises are still of great concern. barring some sort of major shift in policy (which wont happen) at the federal level, the US economy was not prepared to move to a work-from-home model.

ozmodiar 2y ago
We've done something very wrong as a society if we need to kneecap ourselves to prop up property investors. My life feels like nothing but "once in a lifetime" financial problems.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
>the unspoken reasoning for these back-to-work efforts is to stave off a western financial collapse in commercial real estate. If I asked some superintelligent AI to create the most wrong reddit theory possible, I think it might be this one. Large companies (small ones too) have to spend money to give you a desk. Some will even go so far as to put a price tag on it, that facilities cost is $x per square foot or whatever. If they can offload that cost onto their employee, that's win/win. Some real estate companies might do bad if that happens... even if none of their leases are going unrenewed, it puts downward pressure on prices. But those companies have almost no overlap with the ones doing RTO. And I've yet to see that people like Jeff Bezos or whoever have any significant holdings in real estate (even if they did, the positives of remote would outweigh the negatives, and you'd just see them divest). There are winners and losers in a remote-work world, and the people who would win are or should be happy to let the losers lose. Something else is going on. >a crash in the commercial real estate sector would cause solvency problems for large cities Mayoral politicians are so powerless I can't come up with a witty way to describe it. They're Vice President-levels of worthless (and not the Dick Cheney sort either). They have no influence or mojo to swing this. If this would hurt large cities (and it might), then those cities will just be hurt.
xoneill 2y ago
No, the unspoken of motive behind this is to put more money in investor pockets while centibillionaires jokey for position on the Forbes' 100. This is complete bullshit! The strategy here is to displace American workers through attrition by hiring remote Asian workers -- 1 FTE = 4 Indian workers. These companies have no problem outsourcing American jobs -- outside of the US! 'Most' of these are American companies selling American products and services to Americans. If they like Asia so freaking much, leave the US and go sell your $hitty products and services over there!

ozmodiar 2y ago

We've done something very wrong as a society if we need to kneecap ourselves to prop up property investors. My life feels like nothing but "once in a lifetime" financial problems.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

>the unspoken reasoning for these back-to-work efforts is to stave off a western financial collapse in commercial real estate. If I asked some superintelligent AI to create the most wrong reddit theory possible, I think it might be this one. Large companies (small ones too) have to spend money to give you a desk. Some will even go so far as to put a price tag on it, that facilities cost is $x per square foot or whatever. If they can offload that cost onto their employee, that's win/win. Some real estate companies might do bad if that happens... even if none of their leases are going unrenewed, it puts downward pressure on prices. But those companies have almost no overlap with the ones doing RTO. And I've yet to see that people like Jeff Bezos or whoever have any significant holdings in real estate (even if they did, the positives of remote would outweigh the negatives, and you'd just see them divest). There are winners and losers in a remote-work world, and the people who would win are or should be happy to let the losers lose. Something else is going on. >a crash in the commercial real estate sector would cause solvency problems for large cities Mayoral politicians are so powerless I can't come up with a witty way to describe it. They're Vice President-levels of worthless (and not the Dick Cheney sort either). They have no influence or mojo to swing this. If this would hurt large cities (and it might), then those cities will just be hurt.

xoneill 2y ago

No, the unspoken of motive behind this is to put more money in investor pockets while centibillionaires jokey for position on the Forbes' 100. This is complete bullshit! The strategy here is to displace American workers through attrition by hiring remote Asian workers -- 1 FTE = 4 Indian workers. These companies have no problem outsourcing American jobs -- outside of the US! 'Most' of these are American companies selling American products and services to Americans. If they like Asia so freaking much, leave the US and go sell your $hitty products and services over there!