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The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#21

Post by EliRivers »

jpollock wrote: post #7

If your job can be done remote, it can be done offshore for 1/10 the cost.

So why isn't it? Genuine question. A enormous number of jobs can be done remote. Certainly mine (I've been full remote for over three years - one day during Covid the boss just told everyone to go home and we literally never went back to the physical office, which no longer exists). I can see entire companies, maybe entire industries, where vast amounts of the work can be done remotely.

So why aren't all these companies cutting salary costs by 90%? That's a huge, huge amount of money. The stock price would go berserk. Dividends would soar. The C-suite would see incredible increases on their wealth. So if all these jobs can be done for 90% less, PLUS the savings of having no expensive office lease costs, why aren't they?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#25

Post by moshun »

jimbob45 wrote: post #4

We’re afraid of the companies who offshored so many jobs that they killed off entire industries in the US? There’s nothing they won’t do for a buck. If remote work doesn’t happen now, it will in the near future when they realize how much they can save on real estate costs.

The problem is that lots of wealth capital (both personal and corporate) is tied up in commercial real estate. It’s the reason everyone from Martha Stewart to Musk to hedge fund managers are screaming about how “unethical” remote work is. They literally can’t afford to have those buildings sit empty, so they will have to force the peons back into them by any means necessary.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#26

Post by sneak »

TrackerFF wrote: post #5

Re-zoning commercial buildings to residential use should be a realistic option, no?

Rezoning alone is insufficient. For traditional (but interestingly not technical) reasons, the designs of commercial and residential buildings are very different and converting between them in already built structures is going to be very costly.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#27

Post by nobodyandproud »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #9

I don’t really buy the argument. If commercial RE crashes, that means what, people take a 20% haircut on converting the buildings to condos and/or just selling for the value of the land? We are still seeing unprecedented housing shortages, which puts a pretty high floor on how much l “downtown” land values will crash.

A lot of investments, including pension funds and 401ks, have money tied into commercial real estate through ETFs if not outright ownership.

I’m not justifying the for-back-to-work, but to point out the vested interests fighting against remote workers.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#28

Post by tgv »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #9

I don’t really buy the argument. If commercial RE crashes, that means what, people take a 20% haircut on converting the buildings to condos and/or just selling for the value of the land? We are still seeing unprecedented housing shortages, which puts a pretty high floor on how much l “downtown” land values will crash.

Idk how realistic it is to convert those buildings, nor how much value it would take off (from the buildings themselves, but also from the rest of the real-estate market).

But it's not unreasonable to assume fear of loss as a motivation, at all. However, what's the link between the people that can actually re-implement work-from-office and those holding all those office buildings?

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