This article describes the real reason behind the push back to the office. It’s about rich people gambling on real estate and now office buildings are empty.
These same people own newspapers and media channels which is why their crying voices are being pushed.
I thought we knew that from the get go?
Is it the Mandela effect? I feel like there were articles talking about this in 2021.Edit: to be clear, I read the article, it’s quite well written, and definitely worth a read. Wasn’t bashing it.
Yes, we’ve known this for ages already, it’s nothing new. Return to office is about the office, not about the people.
Yeah I knew it too, just making sure more people know the real reasons. :)
The media goes on and on about the fake reasons like collaboration and other bullshit.
The Federal Reserve’s misguided war on inflation has made everything even worse over the last couple of years. By raising interest rates, they’ve motivated *more *companies to ditch their office leases. Now commercial real estate is in a death spiral that could tank the economy (again).
I think a lot of the “article” is on point but what’s with this blaming the Fed for corporations making bad real estate investments? Inflation has been a huge problem over the last several years. The average person, who can’t simply wish more wages into existence to deal with rising costs, has borne the brunt of it. The Federal Reserve has few and limited tools to deal with inflation. The primary tool being the federal funds rate. Raising the rate is one of the only things they could do in this situation. Doing nothing would ultimately have been catastrophic.
Really depends on whether you think inflation or corporate greed is the underlying problem. The average worker tends to disagree with Fed chair Powell that unemployment needs to be very high and profits skyrocketing. The average gambler tends to agree with Powell that power should be solidified at the top. When the average value creator was getting fucked every which way, the Fed said the economy was strong and we are not in a recession. The average rapacious hedge fund took advantage of the slow rise in rates to buy everything under the sun.
Same data, very different conclusions, all depends on your perspective. I can link solid center US publications to back the worker and solid conservative publications to back the corporation. Should the Fed have been raising rates over the last four years? Yeah, absolutely. Where is the disagreement and the complete lack of any other tool plus the root of rising prices as well.
I just got a new job lately. My position is sorta a unicorn position so my new company has been searching for 6 + months. The reason being is that they now require the person to come in 3 times a week in downtown San Francisco. That basically eliminated 99.999999% of people who aren’t walking distance from their office.
To get around the 3 times a week in the office, my manager changed the position into a contractor position. Even then it took 2 months to find me.
So because the CEO was a dumbass, his growth team is not running at full potential. Losing more money than he would have made in his real estate property.
He is probably not a dumb-ass. He’s probably getting kick-backs from the city for making people come to the city 3 times per week. The city makes a fortune off these deals, and the companies save a bunch on taxes.
Damn. TIL.
According to a piece in the Harvard Business Review, the $1 trillion will come due between now and 2026.
So we just have to hold out for 2 more years it seems.
We hold out forever. The cat is out of the bag and the horses have left the barn. There is no going back. Turn that downtown space into apartments and all of those ancillary businesses have customers again.
There’s more to it than that. Corporations get massive tax breaks from the cities and States that they’re located in under the contingency that they maintain a minimum occupancy in their buildings. The government offers them this because they themselves profit immensely from all of the tolls, speeding tickets, parking fees, sales tax on gas and vehicle maintenance, tax on lunch, etc. Basically the government and corporations are conspiring together to create a scenario that necessitates you giving them a bunch of your money. It’s quite disgusting.
Otoh, not everyone wants to work from home. I did that for 2 years, and while I would like a hybrid or occasional schedule, in burned out from it.
I also feel like it isn’t healthy to go 6 months without seeing another human aside from a 200 pixel wide zoom feed.
I would need to drop at least $50k on a house expansion just to fit a functional home office anyway.
This is why people should be allowed to work from where they want. Of course it’s not healthy to not meet other people for long times.
Some of my colleagues are single and they felt the same during covid, it was very difficult for them. But I had a family and didn’t feel lonely at all. So situations vary a lot.
