Posted on 03/25/2023 1:42:15 PM PDT by CFW
Commentary
In the mid-1970s I was a struggling business and economics student. I paid for my tuition and personal expenses with physically demanding summer and part-time jobs and some student debt.
I dreamed of one day working on Canada’s version of Wall Street, which was located in Toronto at the corner of King and Bay streets. That dream came true in the spring of 1980 when the Dominion Bond Rating Service hired me as a junior analyst. Four of the five big Canadian banks occupied the corners of King and Bay in their impressive skyscrapers. A block away were the golden towers of Canada’s largest financial institution, the Royal Bank of Canada. A book published in 1982 was named “Towers of Gold, Feet of Clay,” a reference to the fact the two RBC towers literally have a thin layer of gold coating their windows.
Locating the banks and brokers so closely together made sense at the time. There was no internet, no email, no cellphones, and no video conferencing. There weren’t even spreadsheets available at the beginning of the 1980s. When bankers and brokers met to discuss a new equity or bond issue, relevant executives would meet in one of their boardrooms. In those days, there were almost no food courts. Plebes like myself would pack a sandwich and some fruit and work through lunch. Every other Friday my boss would take us to a deliciously tacky restaurant named Ed’s Warehouse and we would order the only item on the menu: roast beef with frozen peas and watery mashed potatoes. The big shots would eat lunch at pretentious restaurants and private men’s clubs.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
They were in the ditch years before covid.
I witnessed conversions to residential and demolitions.
No, because city’s are run by dems and dems are idiots. Why would someone commute to a job where they pay higher taxes and commuter costs, than work at home?
The answer that every dem mayor proposes is higher taxes on the few businesses stubborn enough to stick it out. They too will eventually leave as crime and taxes rise.
The democrat party is destroying itself. Tragically, I am confident they will destroy the nation first.
I think the jobs will relocate. Maybe not in Manhattan. But other cities like Tampa and Austin.
I think the jobs will relocate. Maybe not in Manhattan. But other cities like Tampa and Austin.
Covid was the final nail into the downtown coffin.
Homeless housing
(Tragically, I am confident they will destroy the nation first.)
Correct
Don’t look now, and I am not sure about Tampa, but the downtown of Austin is becoming another downtown Seattle or Portland.
Homeless, drugs, crime, and filth follow leftist city councils like a plague. They get voted in and promptly begin to destroy the host like a plague. When they finally succeed a bunch of them will flee the nest and promote the same plague in their new habitat.
Even before COVID and working from home, cities were in trouble. The interstate highway system allowed businesses to locate themselves along highways. Why battle traffic commuting into the city?
Employers have started to ask workers to come back to the office. One reason for us was we have replaced the pre-Covid 5 minute desk meeting with a 45 minute Zoom meeting.
We live in the age of perfect storms.
“There weren’t even spreadsheets available at the beginning of the 1980s. “
Yes there were. You just had to use a pencil to write the numbers into the cells of the rows and columns and use a machine for the calculations. Or do the calculations in your head or on a scratch pad.
…..and then there are those big box stores and shopping malls.
DC had excess office space for a few years when I lived there. It only took a couple of new govt agencies to fill them up.
When the owners of downtown office buildings cannot pay the bank loans, the banks will repossess and be stuck with the buildings. If this burden gets too great, they will get bailed out by the Federal Reserve, aka the lender of last resort. When the Federal Reserve starts having problems, then we are screwed.
Ed Dowd https://twitter.com/DowdEdward
says we are now going into a deflation. Follow him on Twitter and videos you can find on y-tube, rumble and so on. Do not buy silver for deflation protection. In fact, I think silver is only good for Weimar Republic style inflation. Which we will never get here. Due to our ultra intricate edifice of bonds and derivatives. Deflation and defaults will be what unwinds that.
I know some downtown office buildings have been put up for sale by companies now that most people for them work from home. It only works if their performance is equal or better. So some businesses have found their people are still productive or more productive.
They are not being idiots, but communists.
Make private property impossible to own by creating the the conditions that force abandonment of said property and, by golly, the government will have to take it over.
Probably not. Companies which are leasing office space are not going to lease as much square footage. Many people enjoy working from home. Companies accountants are finding that they can improve financial performance of the company, by shedding the expensive office space. They may still have office space, but they won’t be leasing as much area as previously.
Add it all up, and with demand for office space declining, rents surely will fall.
But then, what of the loans and financing of the buildings, which depend on rental income to make the mortgage payments? That could create a major financial problem.
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