Anonymous wrote:They are also forcing private companies to return to office. My spouse has to return and they don’t have desk space for everyone and most calls and business will still be on zoom. It’s all about making business happy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let not and say we did. Find a way to pay for DC’s needs without taxing federal employees who are already underpaid for their work and can’t afford to live within an hour of the city as it is.

If you’re underpaid why are there 100s of applicants per job opening? Serious question. Seems like your benefits and job security still make it appealing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let not and say we did. Find a way to pay for DC’s needs without taxing federal employees who are already underpaid for their work and can’t afford to live within an hour of the city as it is.

If you’re underpaid why are there 100s of applicants per job opening? Serious question. Seems like your benefits and job security still make it appealing.

Anonymous wrote:Let not and say we did. Find a way to pay for DC’s needs without taxing federal employees who are already underpaid for their work and can’t afford to live within an hour of the city as it is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic has made people very selfish. Using the reasoning in this thread, one could question almost any public/social expenditure. Why should old people pay taxes for your kid’s education? Why should today’s workers fund Social Security for old people? Why should US taxpayers pay for the defense of Ukraine? I hope people on this thread realize that their isolationist arguments are at the core of social disintegration. They may think that they’ve isolated themselves in a larger home in the distant suburbs, working from home visiting the local deli, but their retirement funds are still in the stock market and their neighborhood isn’t that far from a decaying city. We’re all more interconnected than most seem to realize.

+1. It’s a domino effect.

If commercial real estate collapses, that affects the entire economy.

It also highlights the laptop class’s attitude. Who gives a crap about those cities that are crime-ridden and full of homeless on the streets with shuddered businesses and buildings as their tax base has fled? We’re good in the ‘burbs!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic has made people very selfish. Using the reasoning in this thread, one could question almost any public/social expenditure. Why should old people pay taxes for your kid’s education? Why should today’s workers fund Social Security for old people? Why should US taxpayers pay for the defense of Ukraine? I hope people on this thread realize that their isolationist arguments are at the core of social disintegration. They may think that they’ve isolated themselves in a larger home in the distant suburbs, working from home visiting the local deli, but their retirement funds are still in the stock market and their neighborhood isn’t that far from a decaying city. We’re all more interconnected than most seem to realize.

+1. It’s a domino effect.

If commercial real estate collapses, that affects the entire economy.

It also highlights the laptop class’s attitude. Who gives a crap about those cities that are crime-ridden and full of homeless on the streets with shuddered businesses and buildings as their tax base has fled? We’re good in the ‘burbs!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic has made people very selfish. Using the reasoning in this thread, one could question almost any public/social expenditure. Why should old people pay taxes for your kid’s education? Why should today’s workers fund Social Security for old people? Why should US taxpayers pay for the defense of Ukraine? I hope people on this thread realize that their isolationist arguments are at the core of social disintegration. They may think that they’ve isolated themselves in a larger home in the distant suburbs, working from home visiting the local deli, but their retirement funds are still in the stock market and their neighborhood isn’t that far from a decaying city. We’re all more interconnected than most seem to realize.

+1. It’s a domino effect.

If commercial real estate collapses, that affects the entire economy.

It also highlights the laptop class’s attitude. Who gives a crap about those cities that are crime-ridden and full of homeless on the streets with shuddered businesses and buildings as their tax base has fled? We’re good in the ‘burbs!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic has made people very selfish. Using the reasoning in this thread, one could question almost any public/social expenditure. Why should old people pay taxes for your kid’s education? Why should today’s workers fund Social Security for old people? Why should US taxpayers pay for the defense of Ukraine? I hope people on this thread realize that their isolationist arguments are at the core of social disintegration. They may think that they’ve isolated themselves in a larger home in the distant suburbs, working from home visiting the local deli, but their retirement funds are still in the stock market and their neighborhood isn’t that far from a decaying city. We’re all more interconnected than most seem to realize.

Lol. The selfish thing is forcing middle-class workers to waste 1-2 hrs of their day commuting to save the giant corporate interests of commercial real estate. It’s just not a tenable moral claim, I’m sorry.

You are myopically focused on CRE interests. You need to think a little larger.

Apple owns its own headquarters, not a CRE company. It is also a tech savvy company. Yet, it still wants its workers in the office. Explain that to yourself.

What do Apple and my federal employer have in common? But sure - if the feds would like to pay me an Apple salary and build me an office complex like in Cupertino, maybe I’ll consider it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the country cannot tolerate WFH.

Banks are sh!tting bricks right now about huge losses they would be on the hook for as commercial real estate values tank due to WFH. City govts across the country are also in deep dookie as they are losing massive amounts of tax revenue due to commercial real estate vacancies. Converting offices to living space doesn’t solve the problem either, because local govts get 2x the amount of tax revenue from commercial RE as they do from residential.

Biden is moving t push fir RTO because our banking overlords will losing trillions of dollars due to huge losses in commercial RE value. Tons of local govts will also go bankrupt and spiral into insolvency. SF has now blown up its budget and is running almost $1B in the red now. DC warned the same, and is almost $500M in the red over the coming years due to huge losses in tax revenue from office vacancies. Our entire stupid system is built upon RE speculation, thus when the model gets completely upended the country is now at dire risk for a massive black swan event that will crater the economy. All it is going to take is one bank going belly up and citing commercial RE losses for a economic maelstrom to be unleashed.

Biden didn’t order Feds to RTO. A member of his staff wrote a lukewarm memo. If the President was serious about RTO, he could simply demand tomorrow all feds report. By the way it’s not the responsibility of the good citizens of MD an VA to prop up the District’s economy. I guarantee you that a month from now commuting into DC will be unchanged from what it’s been over the past 18 months. No agency head is going to give two cents to what Zients says.

This. Our agency is plowing ahead with giving up space and moving to a hotelling model for the two days a pay period we’re required to be in office.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic has made people very selfish. Using the reasoning in this thread, one could question almost any public/social expenditure. Why should old people pay taxes for your kid’s education? Why should today’s workers fund Social Security for old people? Why should US taxpayers pay for the defense of Ukraine? I hope people on this thread realize that their isolationist arguments are at the core of social disintegration. They may think that they’ve isolated themselves in a larger home in the distant suburbs, working from home visiting the local deli, but their retirement funds are still in the stock market and their neighborhood isn’t that far from a decaying city. We’re all more interconnected than most seem to realize.

Lol. The selfish thing is forcing middle-class workers to waste 1-2 hrs of their day commuting to save the giant corporate interests of commercial real estate. It’s just not a tenable moral claim, I’m sorry.