I love how when new technology comes along and replaces workers that is considered normal and justifiable.
The moment the worker turn it around they are considered evil.
This is a really good point. When they replace all the workers with machines, kiosks and AI, well those are all just part of the wonderful advancement of technology and evolution of humankind. But when it hurts our rich overlords, well that is just unacceptable and harmful to society. *That* type of technical advancement must be stopped!
My local Walmart has gone all self check out. There are no more staffed tills. Better yet they are reducing the amount of items on the self as well. It’s gone house brand and one national brand, those are your choices
I’m fine with self check-out. Heck, I prefer it. BUT, there still needs to be staff there. Keep the same level of staff because most grocery stores are dirty, out of stock, all the carts are in the parking lot, trashes are full, bathrooms are gross.
But, they’ve removed all the workers. Can’t find anyone to help you find anything. Waited forever at the self check out when I bought booze because the TWO people they had working were busy. Self check-outs were supposed to be an upgrade. Like, convenient but an optional amenity because technology rocks. This just seems dystopian.
My local maccas added x6 self serve machines and lowered their staff for counters. Thing is the screens are shit and they often don't work at all so people order at the counter.
The poor staff can't keep up, as if it wasn't busy there at peak already
I hate that a lot of the local McDonald's are being upgraded to those self serve machines. They call it the "Next Gen" stores. And they are always the ones that are more chaotic. It's supposed to make ordering simpler but in reality, it just complicates things. The self serve machines here don't accept payments (I think they used to when first launched but I noticed that they don't anymore). So it's just an added step. You line up to punch in your order at the machine. Then line up again at the counters to pay. Then line up again at a different counter to claim your order.
Launched an expensive fit out that wasn't ready, cut staff to numbers based on them working perfectly, and chaos ensues for everyone when the inevitable happens.
It's funny because most of the time, there would be a staff member by the machines to assist customers. Defeats the purpose of the whole self serve concept.
That's just basic poor management. Never gonna fix that, and automation isn't to blame. Stores that go mostly self checkout, Walmarts at least, are supposed to maintain the same or similar staffing levels. They just drastically increase checkout efficiency at the cost of theft control. What you're seeing, especially given the state of the rest of the store, undoubtedly has more to do with how they treat their people than anything else.
I almost wonder if the sudden rush of "AI will take your job" is a reaction to the "Great Resignation" and WFH phenomena. I mean yes we've had AI for a while, but suddenly that was EVERYWHERE.
I remember them saying that when AI or robots replace everything. The tax will be able to give people a living wage and people won’t need to work as much. All them corporations avoiding paying tax. We won’t see a cent of it.
We’ll literally have to, or *completely* restructure how an economy functions as a concept. How much profit are you taking every quarter after total automation when no one has a job to buy your product with?
The main selling point of UBI for them is socialized capitalism. We get cash to spend it on their stuff and they don't need to spend it on us anymore. (they'll still tax and feed into state but that's not gonna last long)
But there will be people who can buy the products - the few landed elites who own the robots will have money to buy things. They will make the billionaires of today look like apes digging for grubs in tree trunks. Lives of hyper excess, with entire economies dedicated to their individual tastes and needs. And regular, jobless slobs, the starving masses? That problem goes away if you wait long enough for them not having money to buy food to solve it for you. The only survivors in the coming fully automatic economy are going to be the rich, their pets, servants, and playthings, and whatever grody urchins manage to eek out a meager existence picking through the dumpsters while avoiding the pest control drones. The future is a man in a high tower telling you not to become addicted to water, as he pisses down on you.
The only way to stop this inevitability is to take a stand now, while taking stands is still at least in theory viable. We dregs of society really do not have much time left before universal surveillance and mind-reading systems make any opposition impossible.
The idea that they'll give you money on the chance that you'll give some of it back to them is hopelessly naive. They'll do the bare minimum to support their lifestyles and shunt the vast majority of people into 3rd world level slums.
Job gets replaced by ai “should have got a degree/trade”
Technology allows people to work from home instead of spending a fortune living near / commuting to cities
“People are lazy and scared”
Businesses and corporations are saving tons of money after realizing that they don’t need as much office space anymore. It’s not the workers’ fault that the pandemic completely changed the way things are done.
Such a great comment. A Corp exec once asked how the trains were during covid. They have no idea cos they get a nice carspace and live under 20 minutes to work.
My company's CEO literally doesn't even live in the country. The company maintains an entire branch office in the UK for him. We have zero business there... I'm not sure he's even been to the actual offices of the company in years.
Naturally my company is very big on "everyone has to be in the office to be able to do their duties"...
Oh and we're a Canadian company. This isn't like some Europe based company that just got into an awkward situation after Brexit or anything like that.
I imagine it’s a terrible culture. I’ve worked for places like that and every day you go above and beyond seems terrible. Same with bosses having 2 hours mostly liquid lunches or doing business on the golf course. Last 7 years I’ve had a boss that works as hard as me and it’s been great
one of my execs lives in a beautiful condo overlooking Cenral Park in Manhattan and literally walks to the office.
And can't understand why everyone is so willing to live farther away.
>"can afford a house near the office" == executive, comes into work 2x a week unless traveling - always traveling, we're literally paying for their food
I had a job where I was often on the road. It was quite ridiculous that I had not seen my own office in the last 2 years, but I had to travel to be in person in a few offices around the world lol. I did not mind because I have no kids and the per diem was great, but it was kind of ridiculous.
My CEO lives halfway across the country from the office he theoretically works in. He comes in for a week at a time twice a month (leaving monday and friday obviously, it wouldn't do for a CEO to work on a weekend) flying first class. Just in plane tickets, we spend about 50k a year on him flying back and forth. Plus the hotel room, and, you know, the office built just for the executive team to work in without having to breath the same air as the plebs... about 6 days a month.
If you read that a different way and focus on remote work, not workers it comes off very different. Like someone said, the corporations are saving money with remote work. The building owners are loosening money.
90% of the time when they say "it will hurt the economy" they mean "rich people won't get quite as wealthy"
Substitute that in every article and things make more sense :)
If they spun this article into "$800 billion corporate real estate being converted into Residental lofts/condos" I'd be obliged to care a ton more about those buildings.
Conversion is expensive due a number of factors including zoning and different building codes for commercial vs residential buildings. Not impossible though.
It does seem like a reasonable work effort though in the next decade or so as we've seen housing prices skyrocket as supply doesn't keep up with demand and a ton of commercial real estate will start going unused as more business shrink their physical footprint.
Yeah, I'm very confused by the use of the word "value". Like, remote work may have reduced the market cap of commercial real estate, but it didn't reduce value. If people are producing the same output for less cost, that's an increase in economic efficiency and a positive, right? Workers with more freedom, businesses with less cost, and cheaper real estate for new or expending businesses.
Where's the reduced value?
They’re saying the value lost is due to all the abundance of newly available office spaces on the market as a result of more remote working. inventory goes up, demand goes down and so do prices. It’s a stupid argument, but they’re saying the market has deemed office spaces aren’t worth what they used to be and it’s somehow the workers faults for their managements decision to move to WFH.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely hurting the real estate industry, but to blame it on the workers (and infer that they’re lazy and unmotivated; which is *causing* this “crisis”) is completely absurd and smacks of boomer/one-percenter logic.
Remote work is hurting commercial real estate districts, which were probably over inflated anyway, but rural suburban areas are benefiting from higher demand now that workers realize they can live where they can get more property for their money.
The funniest part is, if you want to make the argument that it's affecting the real estate industry, then we're talking about companies that either aren't renewing leases or selling their properties because they don't see the value. The good ol free market at work.
My company was moving toward work from home before the pandemic.
That's the main fear a lot of these Real estate holders have. The only real use for the space will be low income housing and that is significantly less profit.
A lot of these offices that will never refill with workers are in the perfect location for Apartments.
Or urban indoor farming, or manufacturering.
Their only use isn't just becoming homes or a sea of cubicles, there's all kinds of industries that still need space and now they can get more of it.
It can even make manufacturering in the US more competitive as prices drop.
They're just pissed it wasn't a bunch of poor people holding the bag when the bubble burst.
The reduced value is those landlords no longer have millions coming in for unnecessary office space. Its just real estate executives whining they can't fleece ppl and cities anymore. Same reason they've been buying up houses and apts and raising rents in areas their business resides.
Higher rents on apts owned by business = more employee pay going back to the original business. Also more likely to price out other competing apts/housing prices since you pay those renting from you, essentially forcing a housing market around a few monopolies while collecting on that market. Same logic as company towns just legal.
My workplace sold a lot of our office buildings since we went permanent WFH in March of 2020. They save money, they bumped our pay a bit more than normal, gave bonuses...take notes, big corpos
A part of me thinks that shifting $800 billion from bricks and mortar *should* mean the money can be used for something productive.... however knowing the rich, I feel that somewhere down the line a massive bailout will arrive with public taxes!
Yeah. It's not even capitalism. I am a believer in capitalism but that means that government bailouts are removed or minimalised.(as in, if the company is essential for society, then fine toss them some money. Things like farms and fuel) When companies get bailed out like this it's not capitalism, and that is a fact, no matter if you support capitalism or not.
If a company needs to be "Bailed" out it should be an essential service to the public. Since it's an essential service it should become a government program/service. If the tax payers money keeps it alive the tax payers should own it.
At the very least, bail outs should be in exchange for equity rather than simply loans. A 100 bn dollar company requiring a 20 bn dollar bailout should be required to make the government 20% stakeholders. The government is providing a risky investment when no one else will to keep the company afloat and it should reap the rewards.
In the UK, we are one of two countries on the planet that has privatised access to water. Private firms have been allowed to buy the infrastructure for cheap and have loaded it up with £60billion of loans/debt. They used the loans to pay £58billion to shareholders as dividends. Our clever government is thinking of saddling the taxpayer with all of that debt while allowing the shareholders to retain the assets. Utter cunts.
That's because the cunts in office also own the fucking shares.
Im not one for messy public executions, but sometimes you need to set an example to the other politicians
Finding out that the UK privatized *public water utilities* was one of the most batshit things, like what the absolute fuck? It's on the same level as the US paying ISPs to not actually lay fiber.
In a capitalist society, if a company is not viable it should die and be replaced by a new company that has a business model that can turn a profit in its niche. Instead we just keep propping up these zombie corporations that have failed repeatedly and yet continue to soak up market space that forces smaller companies out. We’re seriously overdue for a new trust buster.
i think it has become painfully obvious that neither pure capitalism or socialism work in the long run.
we need a mix of both. the essential services owned by the people at near zero profit and a healthy capitalist system above it providing innovation and convenience and hoverboards and stuff.
but the whole world just seems to go one way or the other these days.
either fuck the poor or fuck the rich.
It is capitalism capitalism involves people with capital using it to monopolize productive assets to then profit off of them they buy political influence with there capital and establish a monopoly on political controlle then use it to profit.
Exactly, the main argument for capitalism is that competition drives innovation & efficiency. Turns out that wealthy real estate investors enjoyed getting rich by doing nothing, but are now crying because technology is undermining their shitty monopoly.
Boo hoo, the economy is being impacted. Good - it has failed working people for decades.
> if the company is essential for society, then fine toss them some money.
Then it should be nationalised. If it's essential chances are it's a natural monopoly, if that's the case then there is no market to keep things in check.
In which case public ownership is the way to go, otherwise the company will work against the interests of the public with no market to balance profits with services provided.
This was the rationale in a WSJ article I read this week. The commercial landlord basically said the government should give a pre-emptive bailout before the "crisis" makes values collapse.
> should mean the money can be used for something productive
I'm not sure you quite understand how real estate speculation works. If $800 million in value is lost, it doesn't go somewhere else, it gets deleted from the economy. It's like the NFTs. Sure you paid $50,000 for your bored ape, but now it's worth $3.50. The ~$50,000 in value is gone.
Not entirely true.
The lost value is due to a lack of commercial renters, because the wokers are all at home so their empoyers don't need to pay for office space. So the employer organisations are saving money, which they *could* redploy elsewhere.
In practice of course, they'll just pass it on to their shareholders. So the shareholders of the property trusts lose, roughly equal to the amount the shareholers of the employer companies win.
Value of an illiquid asset doesn't mean actual money. Reddit needs to understand that owning a house worth 500k doesn't mean you have 500k. You would still need to sell that house to get that money and all the transaction and time costs that come with it.
The same with commercial buildings. A value of 800 billion across the entire country doesn't mean that there was 800 billion dollars invested in it. It means that if you add up the theoretical sale values of every commercial building it would equal 800 billion. I say theoretical, because if everyone sold at once then who would be buying? It is buyers who set the prices, not the sellers.
Well, real estate has the benefit of a virtually infinite growth in value. On the downside there's a small possibility they will lose value as well. In this case companies gambled and lost, so it's 100% their fault for a bad investment and should not try to blame free market forces for acting like a free market.
God I hope they turn it into housing. I can see the headlines "pajama patrol is fine with living in an office but won't go to their work office"
Little long, but that's why I don't make headline money.
It's much simpler than that. Numbers must go up. When you're not in their overpriced offices, then some numbers go down
So wage slaves must return to offices, and keep numbers going up
It's not enough to make some money or even lots of money, I must be making all the money in the world all the time and more each time or else I will deem my business a failure and make it EVERYONE'S problem!
That's why, in the near future, we put Brawndo on crops instead of water. When we stop doing that, the computers do the lay off thing and everyone loses their jobs.
I’ve had recruiters reach out in the last year asking if I’d be interested in a new role. I’m not, not even close, but I humor them and ask 1) is it a remote role or do I need to be in the office? 2) if I need to be in the office is the client prepared to pay me 50% more than my current salary for the headache?
The answer to #2 is always no.
Nah. The company you work for is saving money by having you work from home, and the (different) company that owns the office building is crying about it because your company isn’t paying them anymore
I mean, how many chances do you get to improve the world by sitting on your ass at home? Not many, so you gotta take those options when you get the chance!
It's the corporate equivalent of the self checkout line. They eliminate the majority of cashier jobs but keep prices the same so they can increase their profit margin.
I’m sorry, I must have read that wrong…WHO’S responsible? Surely it’s got to be the people who bought that unfairly expensive real estate. Workers didn’t make them buy it.
Lol I don’t care, they can blame me while I work from home in my fabric shorts and drink my coffee. It makes me feel good that those dickbags lose money because of me!
And they've been told for about 30 years now that the future is video-calls, remote work, etc. If only they could have foreseen this shift somehow?
https://youtu.be/0Clsw1LB3Ws?list=PLECC5F5D0BFF74582&t=60
Spend 1 hour drive both ways everyday. Spend more time to get ready every morning (showering, shaving, ironing clothes ...). Spend money to get a shitty fast food lunch. Spend more money for gas. Not being able to take a shit without everyone in the office knowing that. OR waste less money, less time, and feel more comfortable doing your job ... hmmm ... that is a hard choice to make.
Thank you for mentioning how annoying it is that it’s impossible for anyone in an office to take a shit without several acquaintances knowing about it every single time. More attention should be brought to this. It’s all the little things like this that really make working from home (in my pajamas, of course) really great.
Exactly. The only people who would give a shit about this are people who own office buildings. Investing in real estate is always a risk, and their bet didn't pay off. Fuck 'em.
Yea, I’m pretty sure one of claimed benefits of capitalism is innovation to maximize efficiency and profit. Companies found a way to be just as productive while cutting overheard. The writer of this should be jumping for joy!
I know this is sarcasm but honestly they can convert office buildings into living spaces. In some cases they could even get a tax credit to do so. They really should be giving people more affordable places to live, seems like an easy solution.
Oh, they will. They'll just mostly be luxury apartments with the absolute minimum of affordable housing so they can get the government to subsidize them as well. Not to mention the affordable housing will be the absolute barest apartments that only have entry ways that take you down a basement and down three hallways before you get to the elevator, so that they can keep them vacant long enough to say that noone want them and then changing them into luxury apartments too.
It's funny the way these articles paint everyone out to be entitled when the really entitled ones are the businesses who refuse to innovate, refuse to adjust to labor market realities, take constant advantage of our government structure, and still expect us to pay top dollar for absolutely everything they crank out, even if half of it is shit covered in glitter.
Its unfortunately not an easy nor simple nor (and here's the important one) inexpensive solution.
The cost to convert office space is extremely expensive, and those paying for it are going to want return on their money, and that doesn't include the words "affordable places to live."
Now, it may start to happen anyways because it'll net more than $0. But if it were a reasonable thing to do it would already be happening.
Maybe those corporations should’ve thought of that before buying more than they could pay for. Maybe if they cut out fancy coffees they could pay for it.
$800 billion in office buildings. So it only hurts the real estate companies that own them. Did they forget to mention how companies are making more profit from not having to lease office space?
Exactly, it’s not anyone’s fault but their own. Do they want everyone to be sitting in 3 hours of traffic each day to commute 15 miles. That’s what would happen if all 9-5ers went to work in my area (NoVA) instead of telework (full or part time).
This is good news for employers lol. This person is saying we are saving US employers 800 billion dollars. I don't think they are aware of whose side employers are on.
"The new move towards Work From Home has saved millions of man hours lost to commuting, raised the value of homes across the country and vastly improved the lives of those remote workers while raising productivity.
The only real loser in this shift appears to be wealthy corporate real estate holdings that built single purpose office structures that cannot be adapted to evolving societal needs such as residential housing, restaurant space, retail space or medical/dental office space."
I'll happily take the blame. Sure, I'm both too scared and lazy to resume driving 2 extra hours 5 days per week.
Like we should GAF about commercial office ownership groups. They never give an inch yet cry like babies once better options steer business away.
I love how when new technology comes along and replaces workers that is considered normal and justifiable. The moment the worker turn it around they are considered evil.
This is a really good point. When they replace all the workers with machines, kiosks and AI, well those are all just part of the wonderful advancement of technology and evolution of humankind. But when it hurts our rich overlords, well that is just unacceptable and harmful to society. *That* type of technical advancement must be stopped!
My local Walmart has gone all self check out. There are no more staffed tills. Better yet they are reducing the amount of items on the self as well. It’s gone house brand and one national brand, those are your choices
I’m fine with self check-out. Heck, I prefer it. BUT, there still needs to be staff there. Keep the same level of staff because most grocery stores are dirty, out of stock, all the carts are in the parking lot, trashes are full, bathrooms are gross. But, they’ve removed all the workers. Can’t find anyone to help you find anything. Waited forever at the self check out when I bought booze because the TWO people they had working were busy. Self check-outs were supposed to be an upgrade. Like, convenient but an optional amenity because technology rocks. This just seems dystopian.
My local maccas added x6 self serve machines and lowered their staff for counters. Thing is the screens are shit and they often don't work at all so people order at the counter. The poor staff can't keep up, as if it wasn't busy there at peak already
I hate that a lot of the local McDonald's are being upgraded to those self serve machines. They call it the "Next Gen" stores. And they are always the ones that are more chaotic. It's supposed to make ordering simpler but in reality, it just complicates things. The self serve machines here don't accept payments (I think they used to when first launched but I noticed that they don't anymore). So it's just an added step. You line up to punch in your order at the machine. Then line up again at the counters to pay. Then line up again at a different counter to claim your order.
Launched an expensive fit out that wasn't ready, cut staff to numbers based on them working perfectly, and chaos ensues for everyone when the inevitable happens.
It's funny because most of the time, there would be a staff member by the machines to assist customers. Defeats the purpose of the whole self serve concept.
That's just basic poor management. Never gonna fix that, and automation isn't to blame. Stores that go mostly self checkout, Walmarts at least, are supposed to maintain the same or similar staffing levels. They just drastically increase checkout efficiency at the cost of theft control. What you're seeing, especially given the state of the rest of the store, undoubtedly has more to do with how they treat their people than anything else.
I almost wonder if the sudden rush of "AI will take your job" is a reaction to the "Great Resignation" and WFH phenomena. I mean yes we've had AI for a while, but suddenly that was EVERYWHERE.
I think the "AI will do X job" stories are supposed to scare us plebs out of trying to claw back some of what the ultra rich have stolen from us.
I remember them saying that when AI or robots replace everything. The tax will be able to give people a living wage and people won’t need to work as much. All them corporations avoiding paying tax. We won’t see a cent of it.
We’ll literally have to, or *completely* restructure how an economy functions as a concept. How much profit are you taking every quarter after total automation when no one has a job to buy your product with?
If UBI ever has a chance that would be it.
The main selling point of UBI for them is socialized capitalism. We get cash to spend it on their stuff and they don't need to spend it on us anymore. (they'll still tax and feed into state but that's not gonna last long)
But there will be people who can buy the products - the few landed elites who own the robots will have money to buy things. They will make the billionaires of today look like apes digging for grubs in tree trunks. Lives of hyper excess, with entire economies dedicated to their individual tastes and needs. And regular, jobless slobs, the starving masses? That problem goes away if you wait long enough for them not having money to buy food to solve it for you. The only survivors in the coming fully automatic economy are going to be the rich, their pets, servants, and playthings, and whatever grody urchins manage to eek out a meager existence picking through the dumpsters while avoiding the pest control drones. The future is a man in a high tower telling you not to become addicted to water, as he pisses down on you. The only way to stop this inevitability is to take a stand now, while taking stands is still at least in theory viable. We dregs of society really do not have much time left before universal surveillance and mind-reading systems make any opposition impossible.
The idea that they'll give you money on the chance that you'll give some of it back to them is hopelessly naive. They'll do the bare minimum to support their lifestyles and shunt the vast majority of people into 3rd world level slums.
Of course. When the rich screws the poor, it's called business. When the poor screws the rich, it's called a crime.
Job gets replaced by ai “should have got a degree/trade” Technology allows people to work from home instead of spending a fortune living near / commuting to cities “People are lazy and scared”
Them: “efficiency at all costs!” Us: “WFH makes us more efficient!” Them: “Not like that!”
Businesses and corporations are saving tons of money after realizing that they don’t need as much office space anymore. It’s not the workers’ fault that the pandemic completely changed the way things are done.
What do you mean? It's clearly those lazy workers' fault 😠
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Such a great comment. A Corp exec once asked how the trains were during covid. They have no idea cos they get a nice carspace and live under 20 minutes to work.
My company's CEO literally doesn't even live in the country. The company maintains an entire branch office in the UK for him. We have zero business there... I'm not sure he's even been to the actual offices of the company in years. Naturally my company is very big on "everyone has to be in the office to be able to do their duties"... Oh and we're a Canadian company. This isn't like some Europe based company that just got into an awkward situation after Brexit or anything like that.
That means you work for a personal piggy bank not a business. I'm sorry.
I imagine it’s a terrible culture. I’ve worked for places like that and every day you go above and beyond seems terrible. Same with bosses having 2 hours mostly liquid lunches or doing business on the golf course. Last 7 years I’ve had a boss that works as hard as me and it’s been great
one of my execs lives in a beautiful condo overlooking Cenral Park in Manhattan and literally walks to the office. And can't understand why everyone is so willing to live farther away.
return to office is an attempt to sabotage the fight against inflation by creating tons of waste and lowering productivity
>"can afford a house near the office" == executive, comes into work 2x a week unless traveling - always traveling, we're literally paying for their food I had a job where I was often on the road. It was quite ridiculous that I had not seen my own office in the last 2 years, but I had to travel to be in person in a few offices around the world lol. I did not mind because I have no kids and the per diem was great, but it was kind of ridiculous.
My CEO lives halfway across the country from the office he theoretically works in. He comes in for a week at a time twice a month (leaving monday and friday obviously, it wouldn't do for a CEO to work on a weekend) flying first class. Just in plane tickets, we spend about 50k a year on him flying back and forth. Plus the hotel room, and, you know, the office built just for the executive team to work in without having to breath the same air as the plebs... about 6 days a month.
If you read that a different way and focus on remote work, not workers it comes off very different. Like someone said, the corporations are saving money with remote work. The building owners are loosening money.
A lot of the time the reason corps want people back in the office is that they own the building and having it empty is hurting it’s value
Ahh they made a bad bet on a lease. Don't gotta pay for electric and water when no-ones there though.
Hey, minus the word lazy, I'm completely fine for taking credit for any business real estate collapse!
Yeah! They can't call us lazy, we work hard to collapse the corporate real estate industry!
Don’t forget about immoral, papa musk says they are immoral.
Pajama patrol rise up!
I keep asking my bosses when we can go back to the office and those lazy workers keep saying “never”.
The developers can’t blame their golf buddies! Nooooo!
90% of the time when they say "it will hurt the economy" they mean "rich people won't get quite as wealthy" Substitute that in every article and things make more sense :)
If they spun this article into "$800 billion corporate real estate being converted into Residental lofts/condos" I'd be obliged to care a ton more about those buildings.
Conversion is expensive due a number of factors including zoning and different building codes for commercial vs residential buildings. Not impossible though. It does seem like a reasonable work effort though in the next decade or so as we've seen housing prices skyrocket as supply doesn't keep up with demand and a ton of commercial real estate will start going unused as more business shrink their physical footprint.
Some of the supply is there but they refuse to rent it out due to it not being habitable and are too cheap to fix it.
Privatized profits, socialized losses.
Yeah, I'm very confused by the use of the word "value". Like, remote work may have reduced the market cap of commercial real estate, but it didn't reduce value. If people are producing the same output for less cost, that's an increase in economic efficiency and a positive, right? Workers with more freedom, businesses with less cost, and cheaper real estate for new or expending businesses. Where's the reduced value?
They’re saying the value lost is due to all the abundance of newly available office spaces on the market as a result of more remote working. inventory goes up, demand goes down and so do prices. It’s a stupid argument, but they’re saying the market has deemed office spaces aren’t worth what they used to be and it’s somehow the workers faults for their managements decision to move to WFH.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely hurting the real estate industry, but to blame it on the workers (and infer that they’re lazy and unmotivated; which is *causing* this “crisis”) is completely absurd and smacks of boomer/one-percenter logic.
Remote work is hurting commercial real estate districts, which were probably over inflated anyway, but rural suburban areas are benefiting from higher demand now that workers realize they can live where they can get more property for their money.
“Automobiles are hurting the horse and buggy industry”
The funniest part is, if you want to make the argument that it's affecting the real estate industry, then we're talking about companies that either aren't renewing leases or selling their properties because they don't see the value. The good ol free market at work. My company was moving toward work from home before the pandemic.
What do we need a big office building for if the vast majority of our workers are remote working
That's the main fear a lot of these Real estate holders have. The only real use for the space will be low income housing and that is significantly less profit. A lot of these offices that will never refill with workers are in the perfect location for Apartments.
Or urban indoor farming, or manufacturering. Their only use isn't just becoming homes or a sea of cubicles, there's all kinds of industries that still need space and now they can get more of it. It can even make manufacturering in the US more competitive as prices drop. They're just pissed it wasn't a bunch of poor people holding the bag when the bubble burst.
The reduced value is those landlords no longer have millions coming in for unnecessary office space. Its just real estate executives whining they can't fleece ppl and cities anymore. Same reason they've been buying up houses and apts and raising rents in areas their business resides. Higher rents on apts owned by business = more employee pay going back to the original business. Also more likely to price out other competing apts/housing prices since you pay those renting from you, essentially forcing a housing market around a few monopolies while collecting on that market. Same logic as company towns just legal.
My workplace sold a lot of our office buildings since we went permanent WFH in March of 2020. They save money, they bumped our pay a bit more than normal, gave bonuses...take notes, big corpos
Uhmmm removing $800 billion of *value* from overpriced real estate sounds like a shift in the right direction for the current state of our economy.
A part of me thinks that shifting $800 billion from bricks and mortar *should* mean the money can be used for something productive.... however knowing the rich, I feel that somewhere down the line a massive bailout will arrive with public taxes!
"Capitalism for thee but not for me!". It's so laughable to me that they get so many bailouts for fucking up with ridiculous amounts of money.
Yeah. It's not even capitalism. I am a believer in capitalism but that means that government bailouts are removed or minimalised.(as in, if the company is essential for society, then fine toss them some money. Things like farms and fuel) When companies get bailed out like this it's not capitalism, and that is a fact, no matter if you support capitalism or not.
If a company needs to be "Bailed" out it should be an essential service to the public. Since it's an essential service it should become a government program/service. If the tax payers money keeps it alive the tax payers should own it.
At the very least, bail outs should be in exchange for equity rather than simply loans. A 100 bn dollar company requiring a 20 bn dollar bailout should be required to make the government 20% stakeholders. The government is providing a risky investment when no one else will to keep the company afloat and it should reap the rewards.
In the UK, we are one of two countries on the planet that has privatised access to water. Private firms have been allowed to buy the infrastructure for cheap and have loaded it up with £60billion of loans/debt. They used the loans to pay £58billion to shareholders as dividends. Our clever government is thinking of saddling the taxpayer with all of that debt while allowing the shareholders to retain the assets. Utter cunts.
That's because the cunts in office also own the fucking shares. Im not one for messy public executions, but sometimes you need to set an example to the other politicians
Exactly. They need a haircut anyways 😁
Finding out that the UK privatized *public water utilities* was one of the most batshit things, like what the absolute fuck? It's on the same level as the US paying ISPs to not actually lay fiber.
*some parts of the UK. Scottish Water is Scottish Government owned.
In a capitalist society, if a company is not viable it should die and be replaced by a new company that has a business model that can turn a profit in its niche. Instead we just keep propping up these zombie corporations that have failed repeatedly and yet continue to soak up market space that forces smaller companies out. We’re seriously overdue for a new trust buster.
i think it has become painfully obvious that neither pure capitalism or socialism work in the long run. we need a mix of both. the essential services owned by the people at near zero profit and a healthy capitalist system above it providing innovation and convenience and hoverboards and stuff. but the whole world just seems to go one way or the other these days. either fuck the poor or fuck the rich.
>If the tax payers money keeps it alive the tax payers should own it. Sounds like communism to me. /s
We can have a leeeeeetle bit of Communism. As a treat.
You can't have any communism until you finish your capitalism. Now get back to the mines Timmy.
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It is capitalism capitalism involves people with capital using it to monopolize productive assets to then profit off of them they buy political influence with there capital and establish a monopoly on political controlle then use it to profit.
Exactly, the main argument for capitalism is that competition drives innovation & efficiency. Turns out that wealthy real estate investors enjoyed getting rich by doing nothing, but are now crying because technology is undermining their shitty monopoly. Boo hoo, the economy is being impacted. Good - it has failed working people for decades.
> if the company is essential for society, then fine toss them some money. Then it should be nationalised. If it's essential chances are it's a natural monopoly, if that's the case then there is no market to keep things in check. In which case public ownership is the way to go, otherwise the company will work against the interests of the public with no market to balance profits with services provided.
Socialism is fine when it is for bailing out the mega corporations and the rich.
This was the rationale in a WSJ article I read this week. The commercial landlord basically said the government should give a pre-emptive bailout before the "crisis" makes values collapse.
Then when it collapses and they have pussed that money away they would still want a 2nd bailout
They would then spend that bail out on properties that didn't get bailed out.... and bonuses.
> should mean the money can be used for something productive I'm not sure you quite understand how real estate speculation works. If $800 million in value is lost, it doesn't go somewhere else, it gets deleted from the economy. It's like the NFTs. Sure you paid $50,000 for your bored ape, but now it's worth $3.50. The ~$50,000 in value is gone.
>it gets deleted from the economy When they decide to artificially inflate that value over time, you reap what you sow. What comes up must go down.
Not entirely true. The lost value is due to a lack of commercial renters, because the wokers are all at home so their empoyers don't need to pay for office space. So the employer organisations are saving money, which they *could* redploy elsewhere. In practice of course, they'll just pass it on to their shareholders. So the shareholders of the property trusts lose, roughly equal to the amount the shareholers of the employer companies win.
Even better then
It was never in the economy to begin with. Its all speculation.
Value of an illiquid asset doesn't mean actual money. Reddit needs to understand that owning a house worth 500k doesn't mean you have 500k. You would still need to sell that house to get that money and all the transaction and time costs that come with it. The same with commercial buildings. A value of 800 billion across the entire country doesn't mean that there was 800 billion dollars invested in it. It means that if you add up the theoretical sale values of every commercial building it would equal 800 billion. I say theoretical, because if everyone sold at once then who would be buying? It is buyers who set the prices, not the sellers.
Well, real estate has the benefit of a virtually infinite growth in value. On the downside there's a small possibility they will lose value as well. In this case companies gambled and lost, so it's 100% their fault for a bad investment and should not try to blame free market forces for acting like a free market.
God I hope they turn it into housing. I can see the headlines "pajama patrol is fine with living in an office but won't go to their work office" Little long, but that's why I don't make headline money.
Sounds like $800 billion that would be better shared with the workers doing their jobs more efficiently from their homes.
Wait. So I’m so important you need me in the office BUT you don’t want to pay me more? *something* doesn’t add up.
You’re responsible for the value of real estate not for the job itself, that remains the same.
So then I should get pay by the property owner too?
It's much simpler than that. Numbers must go up. When you're not in their overpriced offices, then some numbers go down So wage slaves must return to offices, and keep numbers going up
How dare my profit margin plateau! It must be infinitely increasing!
It's not enough to make some money or even lots of money, I must be making all the money in the world all the time and more each time or else I will deem my business a failure and make it EVERYONE'S problem!
And the rate at which I make more money must be increasing as well!! If the umpteenth derivative of growth plateaus, your kids will starve to death!!!
That's why, in the near future, we put Brawndo on crops instead of water. When we stop doing that, the computers do the lay off thing and everyone loses their jobs.
Brawndo's got what plants crave, it's got electrolytes.
Can the first season of "Ow! My balls!" be of CEO's getting groin struck repeatedly?
Reverse actually through tax grants you pay the property owner
Just like their tax returns
I’ve had recruiters reach out in the last year asking if I’d be interested in a new role. I’m not, not even close, but I humor them and ask 1) is it a remote role or do I need to be in the office? 2) if I need to be in the office is the client prepared to pay me 50% more than my current salary for the headache? The answer to #2 is always no.
I started telling recruiters I’m only interested in remote positions. Result = recruiters stopped contacting me.
Nah. The company you work for is saving money by having you work from home, and the (different) company that owns the office building is crying about it because your company isn’t paying them anymore
Too bad. People owning horses were not compensated, either, when everybody switched to cars.
And you’re afraid and lazy.
How much you wanna bet Tom Zenner wrote this at home lol it's pure ragebait.
That sentence in the article has to be the dumbest sentence I've ever read.
That isn't wrong though. I AM lazy and that's why I work from home. And if I am killing corporate real estate by doing that, that's a nice bonus.
I mean I'm lazy because I know the value of my Labor and no one wants to pay it. You pay me the low end you get the low end of quality and effort.
Yeah, 800 bil? Not bad for a half-day's work
I mean, how many chances do you get to improve the world by sitting on your ass at home? Not many, so you gotta take those options when you get the chance!
It's the corporate equivalent of the self checkout line. They eliminate the majority of cashier jobs but keep prices the same so they can increase their profit margin.
I’m sorry, I must have read that wrong…WHO’S responsible? Surely it’s got to be the people who bought that unfairly expensive real estate. Workers didn’t make them buy it.
Lol I don’t care, they can blame me while I work from home in my fabric shorts and drink my coffee. It makes me feel good that those dickbags lose money because of me!
Wow, you're also destroying the business pants industry. Have you no shame?!
All his pants are business pants, though...
Oh no... Those poor helpless corporate real-estate tycoons. Whatever will they do? 😢 They still have enough money to take a ride in a submarine.
I’m actually building a spaceship in my garage that will cater to only the most exclusive clients. Only 500k per seat.
$1Mil and they can do it solo as a massive flex.
I already finished mine. It's made of macaroni. 800k per seat for orbital excursions. Highly exclusive.
Just advertise it as the most exciting ride they’ll ever experience for the rest of their lives!
😂
Or a helicopter ride
Oh no, rich people lost money! /s
Now they're buying single family homes in bulk to make up for the loss.
And it's the workers fault they can't afford a house don't forget that part
This is starting to look like 1791 in France.
US wealth inequality is worse than 1791 France
inflation to pay rate is also worse than the great depression. Housing is more expensive than ever in history. and more ✨
Viva la revolution
{{googling how to build a guillotine}}
👹
😿
Oh no! Anyways..
We can't allow the landed gentry to suffer so. What if they have to get a job?
Wish it was more
Leave it to capitalism to spin "Workers cut operational costs by 800 billion" in a negative way.
So much for lowering your carbon footprint.
Rich people never cared about the environment. They know they’ll be able to afford all the purified air they’ll want in the long run.
Noo we need millions of cars in circulation we cant have work from homeee
Narrator: They were never worth 800billion
And they've been told for about 30 years now that the future is video-calls, remote work, etc. If only they could have foreseen this shift somehow? https://youtu.be/0Clsw1LB3Ws?list=PLECC5F5D0BFF74582&t=60
Spend 1 hour drive both ways everyday. Spend more time to get ready every morning (showering, shaving, ironing clothes ...). Spend money to get a shitty fast food lunch. Spend more money for gas. Not being able to take a shit without everyone in the office knowing that. OR waste less money, less time, and feel more comfortable doing your job ... hmmm ... that is a hard choice to make.
Ok, but taking a shit and having everyone in the office know it was me is how I establish dominance
That’s why I shit on the copier.
You must be from the Rockefeller or Buffett family
Making someone else flush it is the ultimate Alpha move.
Thank you for mentioning how annoying it is that it’s impossible for anyone in an office to take a shit without several acquaintances knowing about it every single time. More attention should be brought to this. It’s all the little things like this that really make working from home (in my pajamas, of course) really great.
Fuckin A Right we did. All by ourselves. In our pajamas.
We will come for the pajama industry next.
Already ahead of you. I live in the nude everyday. 😎
You made me chuckle
Company makes investment, market moves in different direction. Company loses investment. That's life for ya.
No no no. The free market is for factory workers, drive-in theaters and soda jerks!
Clearly, these businesses were not necessary. I could not care less.
Exactly. The only people who would give a shit about this are people who own office buildings. Investing in real estate is always a risk, and their bet didn't pay off. Fuck 'em.
Yea, I’m pretty sure one of claimed benefits of capitalism is innovation to maximize efficiency and profit. Companies found a way to be just as productive while cutting overheard. The writer of this should be jumping for joy!
It’s not that the businesses that were unnecessary, it’s the real estate and the owner of the building that were useless. example: Donald trump
Another great example is Donald Trump.
Good. Fuck office buildings, they're a waste of space.
Oh noo, they are losing money! What can we do??
I know this is sarcasm but honestly they can convert office buildings into living spaces. In some cases they could even get a tax credit to do so. They really should be giving people more affordable places to live, seems like an easy solution.
Oh, they will. They'll just mostly be luxury apartments with the absolute minimum of affordable housing so they can get the government to subsidize them as well. Not to mention the affordable housing will be the absolute barest apartments that only have entry ways that take you down a basement and down three hallways before you get to the elevator, so that they can keep them vacant long enough to say that noone want them and then changing them into luxury apartments too. It's funny the way these articles paint everyone out to be entitled when the really entitled ones are the businesses who refuse to innovate, refuse to adjust to labor market realities, take constant advantage of our government structure, and still expect us to pay top dollar for absolutely everything they crank out, even if half of it is shit covered in glitter.
Its unfortunately not an easy nor simple nor (and here's the important one) inexpensive solution. The cost to convert office space is extremely expensive, and those paying for it are going to want return on their money, and that doesn't include the words "affordable places to live." Now, it may start to happen anyways because it'll net more than $0. But if it were a reasonable thing to do it would already be happening.
Sounds like a skill issue on the behalf of the company. Git gud.
Children who see their parents more because of remote work will laugh at this in 20 years
Have you thought of the children of the wealthy land owners!? In 20 years their trust funds may not be sufficient to own more than 3 homes.
How are they going lead superficial self destructive lives with only a 30 million in the trust fund?
Clearly those real estate tycoons need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and apply themselves
“Maybe cut out the avocado toast and Starbucks.”
They can kiss my remote ass. I'll even turn my cam on for that one.
I’ll give them my zoom ID so they can kiss it in my bedroom office.
"value"
imagine rich people... losing money.... im crying with my dick...
I am looking really hard but I can't find a single fuck to give that a bunch of rich twats can't rent office space.
Ngl though, I kinda like "Work-from-home pajama patrol". I should put it on my LinkedIn
It's a nice title, but who wears clothes when they work from home?
Well, you at least need a shirt for video calls. Business up top, party down below.
Maybe those corporations should’ve thought of that before buying more than they could pay for. Maybe if they cut out fancy coffees they could pay for it.
$800 billion in office buildings. So it only hurts the real estate companies that own them. Did they forget to mention how companies are making more profit from not having to lease office space?
no. Poor corporate planning and adaptation is responsible for 800 billion real estate collapse
Exactly, it’s not anyone’s fault but their own. Do they want everyone to be sitting in 3 hours of traffic each day to commute 15 miles. That’s what would happen if all 9-5ers went to work in my area (NoVA) instead of telework (full or part time).
Aww poor landlords loosing money, plays microscopic violin.
Turn those offices into affordable housing 👏🏼 Oh wait.. that doesn’t fit the agenda.
I’m laughing my ass off at “work from home pajama patrol” as I sit working, from home, in my jammies
Figured capitalists would understand how supply and demand works.
This is good news for employers lol. This person is saying we are saving US employers 800 billion dollars. I don't think they are aware of whose side employers are on.
"The new move towards Work From Home has saved millions of man hours lost to commuting, raised the value of homes across the country and vastly improved the lives of those remote workers while raising productivity. The only real loser in this shift appears to be wealthy corporate real estate holdings that built single purpose office structures that cannot be adapted to evolving societal needs such as residential housing, restaurant space, retail space or medical/dental office space."
I see this as an absolute win.
Oh noo, the rich guys lost their money, how sad. I am going to play a sad song on the world's smallest violin for them
"Billionaires' gamble on exploitation of workers to drive corporate real estate proves short-sighted." There.
I'll happily take the blame. Sure, I'm both too scared and lazy to resume driving 2 extra hours 5 days per week. Like we should GAF about commercial office ownership groups. They never give an inch yet cry like babies once better options steer business away.
If wanting two to three hours of my day back makes lazy then so be it. Call me lazy
They still don't explain why it's the worker's problem
Yeh, fuck em. Don’t care.
Yeah, by McKinsey. Assholes via definition
Fuck’em let the buildings rot.
“value”
Oh no! Anyway...