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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

#301

Post by deet »

deet wrote: post #157
stanleydrew wrote: post #23

This isn't particularly well-argued. Just a lot of handwavy grievance about "elites" as though there's some kind of coordinated conspiracy.

The article is not well argued, yes. But there is direct evidence that politicians are influencing corporations to alter return to office policies: - Mayor of SF asking businesses to pledge to implement RTO policies: https://sfist.com/2022/03/03/mayor-breed-would-like-you-back... - Mayor of NYC basically doing the same: https://archive.is/si6xd

Can't edit the post now, but if the second link is broken it was meant to point to this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/wall-stre...

Here's another related one: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/02/17/new-york-c...

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

#302

Post by zer8k »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #272
rsynnott wrote: post #238

This is a very popular idea, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of _sense_. Most office-oriented employers don’t own much if any real estate; they lease it. And unless they’re really huge, what _they_ do has very little influence on the price of real estate generally; they’ve no individual incentive here. Arguably a mild counter—incentive; it’s generally to their benefit, as renters of real estate, if future real-esta…

People want to see “the elites” as one homogeneous cabal out to protect themselves at the expense of the little guy. In reality, it’s a bunch of self-interested individuals whose incentives don’t overlap here. The companies using office space have no reason to waste money helping out their landlords, and would much rather profit by screwing them over. As you say, this theory does not make much sense.

When they talk about "the elites" they are talking about a cabal and yes, it does exist. Vanguard and Blackrock created this environment by simply owning more real estate (via other companies) than anyone else. This, combined with their ESG score, is absolutely toxic to "the little guy". They tell their constituent publicly held companies that they're losing big on real estate and the next day 2,000 articles on the reason remote work is terrible come out. This is further compounded by one of the major avenues of reaping back money from startups is VC owned property. There isn't conspiracy here. Blackrock in particular is well known as a major buyer of real estate holding companies.

Expand that from strictly finance to other facets of life and you'll fine similar cabals. Groceries? Yep. News? Yep. They do exist, and it's not simply self interested self-made individuals at the helm. They are a product, not the genesis, of the very real so-called Illuminati you occasionally hear about.

EDIT: Fastest downvotes in the west wow. Open-minded HN showing their open-minded progressive mindset again.

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

#303

Post by theonlybutlet »

rsynnott wrote: post #238

This is a very popular idea, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of _sense_. Most office-oriented employers don’t own much if any real estate; they lease it. And unless they’re really huge, what _they_ do has very little influence on the price of real estate generally; they’ve no individual incentive here. Arguably a mild counter—incentive; it’s generally to their benefit, as renters of real estate, if future real-esta…

Generally apart from break clauses (usually midway through a lease) companies are liable for the full lease cost and can't give early notice for termination.

In accounting terms, leases according to IFRS 16 are recognized as a lease liability and a contra right of use asset for the full term of the lease.

I'm not 100% certain on the rationale of an impairment (as it could be construed as no longer useful) but if these companies aren't using these properties, auditors may force them to impair their leases, meaning large write offs and accounting losses.

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

#304

Post by mindslight »

Kamq wrote: post #298
mindslight wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the human level, sure. On the level of "fundamental economic system" (which is, I believe, the line of discussion), there really aren't. One of the problems with this whole "debate" is that defenders of the status quo apply a huge motte and bailey to the definition of "capitalism". Both strawmanning any criticism of it as a rejection of all aspects claimed by capitalism, and also giving capitalism credit for sys…

> One of the problems with this whole "debate" is that defenders of the status quo apply a huge motte and bailey to the definition of "capitalism". Both strawmanning any criticism of it as a rejection of all aspects claimed by capitalism, and also giving capitalism credit for systems that share some aspects of capitalism even though they haven't gone all-in and let capital run roughshod over everything else. This is…

I don't know that is a great definition any more. A straightforward implication is that China is capitalist. Which isn't necessarily wrong, but rather demonstrates that it's focused on yesterday's arguments.

Meanwhile I'd say most critics of "late stage capitalism" aren't bemoaning the private ownership aspect itself. Rather they're criticizing the wealth concentration, industry consolidation, and government corruption that large accumulations of capital symbiotically buy and benefit from.

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

#305

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

shrimpx wrote: post #152
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sunk cost. They have CRE leases they can't back out of and want to leverage their expensive real estate. In the future as the leases expire we may see shrinking and a slow return to more remote work as companies reduce the square footage of the leases. Smart managers know that eliminating rent from balance sheets improves the bottom line.

How do you “leverage” the real estate if WFH is free in terms of office costs, and assuming there’s no loss of productivity with WFH?

Some companies are weird about using a co-working address and want a really small office footprint. Enough for a meeting room, a few offices, and a mailbox so when some banker or other business shows up you can put on a dog and pony show in a formal office with your name on the wall. That's about it.

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

#306

Post by mindslight »

davidw wrote: post #300
mindslight wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the human level, sure. On the level of "fundamental economic system" (which is, I believe, the line of discussion), there really aren't. One of the problems with this whole "debate" is that defenders of the status quo apply a huge motte and bailey to the definition of "capitalism". Both strawmanning any criticism of it as a rejection of all aspects claimed by capitalism, and also giving capitalism credit for sys…

If people actually bothered to read the link I posted, it is all about the lazy blaming of a wide variety of problems with specific solutions on a very hand-wavy "capitalism". I know a fair bit about about the housing shortage for instance, and it's not "capitalism". It's a specific set of rules and institutions that cause the problem.

Sure, but that's the strawmanning I'm talking about. Citing tweets from people trying to be edgy with Marxism and pointing out their intellectual laziness isn't actually addressing the legitimate complaints about late stage capitalism.

To me, the root causes of the housing crisis are zoning and the endless supply of newly created money from the Federal Reserve. Both of these policies are direct results of those who own housing (aka capital owners) politically insisting that the value of their "investments" continually go up. That's capital acting on the meta-system to optimize for capital itself. It's sensible to lay the blame for this on capitalism itself, and doing so doesn't mean I'm looking to somehow blow away the entire system in favor of some completely different -ism.

I'd personally make my own distinction of centralized capitalism versus distributed capitalism. But that's more of a constructive argument of how to specifically reform the system, while still sharing the general criticism.

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

#307

Post by FrustratedMonky »

kolbe wrote: post #112
aenis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah maybe, but maybe its helpful to think what the holders of commercial real estate debt do to avoid the catastrophe? Surely, they are not just sitting and waiting. The offices are empty. The companies are doing just fine. There need to be external pressures applied to bring people back to the offices, I'd think.

Sure. They might be commissioning a harvard business professor to write about productivity gains of being in-office. They might lobby for some regulation to force a liability onto companies with remote workers. But what they aren't doing is getting 1000 of the richest people in the world into a room and coordinating a conspiracy to help some corner of the room not go bankrupt.

Except, She never said any of that.

Since the article is in line with what you said, coordination could be through commissioning a Harvard writer, or lobbying, or regulation, either way it isn't explicitly stated. I get the impression that you are arguing against a point of view that you are assuming.

This is clearly you, reading (a lot) into what she said, and then reacting to your own pre-formed perceptions of an argument you think she made.

Kind of like when people get into internal mental arguments with fictional others, and start talking to themselves. Then getting so wound up they blurt something out of context, or march on the capital.

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

#308

Post by FrustratedMonky »

constantcrying wrote: post #290
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, kind of, but not exactly. Anytime this point comes up, someone on the right/Republican will say any taxation is Socialism, that Europe is Socialist. So, to compare Europe/Nordic socialist policies, to US policies is not a large leap. You can't just say, "well technically that isn't really socialism so we can't use that as an example in this argument", when literally for a decade the 'right' has specifica…

>taxation is Socialism Nonsensical strawman. Socialism has a real meaning and "taxation" isn't it.

Tell that to Republicans. If 50% of the population does believe that. Then I'm forced to make the point, to address it in that way.

I know this, but there is 50/50 chance that whoever is posting on the internet does not know it.

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

#309

Post by BurningFrog »

lost_tourist wrote: post #207
BurningFrog wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converting offices to condos is for practical purposes illegal due to the very different regulations. You can tear the buildings down and build new ones, but that will take a decade to get permitted, if you're in a construction permissive city.

lol it doesn't take 10 years to get a new building built, 3-5 years tops if you have the capital.

The construction work is not the problem.

I'm talking about getting all needed permits.

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

#310

Post by sudosysgen »

chaos_emergent wrote: post #289
1attice wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong here but I don't read this as a claim of conspiracy. To my mind, this is more a systems-level description of currents in capital. Yes, there's a clickbaity headline about 'elites', but if you think more in terms of wealth doing things of its own accord (similar to how e.g. Dawkins got us talking about selfish genes -- selfish dollars?) then this observation might cash out after all. That said, I do a…

I’m just confused about causal chain that would lead to this happening…perhaps it’s a lack of imagination. Like, do we think that landlords are bribing corporations to lease their properties?

Corporations are already in 5+ year leases and don't want them to be unmitigated liabilities, the owners of the corporation also have significant investments in real estate, there's your incentive.
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