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Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

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Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#471

Post by [deleted] »

lesdeuxmagots wrote: post #361
SilasX wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propping up assets isn’t in their mandate though.

Their mandate requires a stable financial system with solvent institutions and sufficient liquidity moving through the system. By definition, solvency and liquidity at the country level depend on major asset classes maintaining some amount of value. That baseline changes based on regulations of what can or cannot be used as collateral for different measures, what ratios institutions have to maintain, etc, but there i…

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#472

Post by SilasX »

dredmorbius wrote: post #404
SilasX wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propping up assets isn’t in their mandate though.

Traditionally the Fed has bought and sold Treasury bonds on open market transactions. Beginning with the 2008 GFC, this was expanded to buying "distressed assets" ( https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/11/10/fed-takes-step-in... ). This was, and remains, controversial (as noted in the WSJ link), and poorly understood (I'm still not certain I grasp it well, let alone fully, myself). My understanding is that the Fed's…

I'm glad you made sure not to let that uncertainty leak through in your original comment.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#473

Post by SamuelAdams »

epa wrote: post #360
rossdavidh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but with a caveat. The _very_ top execs of large organizations (Google, Facebook, etc.) may be anxious to get to a lower-salary environment, and remote work may be a necessary part of that. If they are determined to move to a structure where they don't have to pay SV salaries, they might overrule their middle-management and extend remote work in order to facilitate that.

This is a very underrated comment. Many people romanticize the work from home no commute in a rural area, but do not be surprised to find corporations taking advantage of your new found anchor.

Also consider the expanding talent pool and competition. I live in Michigan. I would love to work with Microsoft or Google, because they do some very interesting work. However relocating across the country, away from established friends and family, isn't something I can currently consider.

Average developer salaries for my area are between 60-100k, so if Microsoft can offer 120k+, a lot of (great) devs in my area would probably take that. Local devs get better wages, and companies save some money.

However, they could also outsource to India for even cheaper results, but who knows how well that will go.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#474

Post by ModernMech »

tabob wrote: post #461
ericmay wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has unemployment benefits [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_the_U...

Unemployment varies greatly state by state and rarely keeps up with the reality of the cost of living. On top of this, it only applies if you lose your job due to "lay-offs". I've been laid off four times in my life, all 3 times the companies claimed they were not lay-offs and fought my claim. 2 times I was denied. The third time I received unemployment benefits for 5 months. I received $4,000 in benefits then my for…

Not to mention you have to make enough money to qualify for unemployment. My wife was once denied because in the window of time they use to calculate unemployment her pay was too low. They told her that in order to qualify for unemployment, she had to get a job and make more money, and then lose that job and reapply.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#475

Post by GVRV »

tabob wrote: post #461
ericmay wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has unemployment benefits [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_the_U...

Unemployment varies greatly state by state and rarely keeps up with the reality of the cost of living. On top of this, it only applies if you lose your job due to "lay-offs". I've been laid off four times in my life, all 3 times the companies claimed they were not lay-offs and fought my claim. 2 times I was denied. The third time I received unemployment benefits for 5 months. I received $4,000 in benefits then my for…

This is infuriating :( Hope you weather the storm and end up in a better spot soon.

But, this is one of my concerns too. I equate money with time and if, as a law-abiding citizen, I work diligently for a couple of decades and pay my taxes, when circumstances change – I should be assured some sort of a safety net. Otherwise, what is the point of wasting time working to pay taxes? Is this the hard reality that we cannot rely on governments taking care of us and need to come up with more individualistic backup plans in such circumstances? Does paying all of your taxes and being a model law-abiding citizen make you a sucker?

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#476

Post by drdeadringer »

_euac wrote: post #198
drdeadringer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NextDoor That place was a nice idea just like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn were. NextDoor worked out just as well as the rest of them.

Haha, I hear horror stories from my friends who are on NextDoor. At some point, a guy reported seeing a coyote on Lafayette park while walking his dog at 2am. You know, just being nice to the neighbors and letting them know to be careful about their dogs. Next thing you know, a bunch of people started questioning what he was doing 'so late' on the park, then other people started accusing him of being a drug dealer or…

That type of thing is exactly what I'm referring to. At its worst NextDoor is a social network for a clone army of Nosy Nancy. "Saw teenager walking on sidewalk. Suspicious. Noted, shall call police." Nosy Nancy lives a block away from a school and watched a student walking home after school.

Iterate ad nauseam for Goodwill donation trucks, VTA Lite Rail stations, recycling centers, whatever fits that neighborhood's definition of "undesirables" and what "attracts them".

Yes, there are good things regarding NextDoor and I have experienced some of them. However, in my experience the ratio skews poorly and towards suspicion and towards hate.

It's been a few years since I've been there and I have no regrets. On a nice day, it was a silly place.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#477

Post by meerita »

adrianN wrote: post #467
meerita wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that doesn't happen as you say. What people do is just take 2 year sabatical at the expenses of all the taxes while they go Thailand, etc. That is what happens with most of the unemployment checks.

In Germany people don't take two year sabbaticals while on welfare. Where do you think that happens?

In Spain is very common to take 2 year sabatical while enjoying the welfare. Most of them go away and sign online through proxies or use family members to do that.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#478

Post by nimish »

jacobolus wrote: post #103
nimish wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the spending power of the federal government, and the tax collection of the federal government are not linked. So long as the fed can print money the federal government can spend. It cares not about the states or how much income tax flows in. Hence, it can run up structural deficits until faith is lost in the $ (inflation). State governments, on the other hand, cannot print money. They must operate in a zero-sum…

Yes, the federal government could bail out state and local governments (and indeed that’s some of what the Heroes Act does – passed by the House in May). But the GOP Senate intransigently refuses to act or even negotiate, and so state/local governments are getting crushed.

Well good? The federal government has no obligation to bail out the states

That's a political decision and the gop has decided to let the states that need bailouts diy it.

I don't think it's wise, but it sure is within gop policy aims

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#479

Post by bradleyjg »

smartbit wrote: post #366
sidlls wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet within a year or maybe two tops that the vast majority of "permanent" remote companies will have reverted to be mostly or entirely on-premise again. One or two might last, but most won't.

Why do certain companies succeed as a remote company (Gitlab comes to mind) and others wouldn’t? I think you’re probably right, but I’d like to understand. Will working from home force a change in management style? To compensate for lack of socialization in the office, I notice that companies like Gitlab organise corporate gatherings were all employees can meet in person. Open Source projects teams meet at (the fring…

My guess is two primary factors:

1) size Non-linear diseconomies of scale mean that all other things held equal smaller companies are more likely to be able to pull it off than larger companies

2) first mover / selection I’d guess that there’s a relatively small fraction of employees that can be competitively productive in an indefinite WFH scenario. Companies that were always remote first and got there before everyone else were able to pick off these outliers. Companies trying to convert to it have the luck of the draw and further as the market saturates everyone will have a harder time chasing after these few.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#480

Post by meerita »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #450
meerita wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, just look the evidence: Venezuela, Argentina, Spain, etc.

I'll give you Venezuela and Argentina, but can you clarify how Spain matches your argument?

Between the socialists years, 2006-2010 they've spent so much in consume programs that we will be paying for that many years. We're lucky that we have euro, but the proof is unemployment is hight as crazy every year and there are no signs of investement. People also changed mindset from savings to spendings, and now they are demanding more money from the goverment for anything. Please check also Chile, they had couple of programs made by Bachelet, they all failed.
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