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Comment by stareatgoats | Hacker News Reader

> employers [are] fueled by a belief that employees work more effectively when they’re physically present.

plus

> Many in the C-suite are frustrated that their office space is underused

plus

> Most leaders achieved their position while working in an office and therefore want to maintain the playing field on which they succeeded

all of which might be true to varying degrees. But what is the role of institutional owners who also have massive investments in downtown office spaces and commercial properties, investments that are now slowly eroded because of remote? I would assume they are applying some pressure through the boards?

I have no proof ATM though. But it would be expected. But futile in the long run, the shift to remote has taken place already.

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One of the few unfounded conspiracy theories I believe is that there is some kind of unofficial, concerted effort from Western oligarchs to use RTO to bolster commercial office space valuations and prevent a banking crisis.

The problem is, I think the conviction to do this is relatively weak. They’re fine to do it with existing leased or bought office space because it’s mostly a sunk cost and just a matter of prodding their workers into compliance (in an employers’ market, thanks Fed), but most aren’t really willing to scoop these 60-70% discounted empty office spaces off the market. So we may end up with a banking crisis anyway, as word on the street is these huge losses in valuation threaten to blow up a lot of regional banks.

Right - a discounted empty office building is still an empty office building.

It's not just going to be us regionals, unless we pretend that none of the commercial paper is being used as acceptable collateral at central clearing houses, bilateral or tri-party swaps globably.

Global central bank balance sheets since 2008 already tells the direction that it, when an crisis eventually unfolds, will go...

Heaven forbid any of these workers in these contested rto corps have exposure to non central/private bank monetary systems... going to make that "war" more complicated for them...

> One of the few unfounded conspiracy theories I believe is that there is some kind of unofficial, concerted effort from Western oligarchs to use RTO to bolster commercial office space valuations and prevent a banking crisis.

Hard to say if it's true and to what degree but these guys need to adapt. There is enormous demand for more buildings - but they do not necessarily have to be offices. Most funds prefer commercial real estate because it's easier to deal with but I don't think they have any chance against the market, they will have to adapt.

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