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.