The Absurdity of the Return-to-Office Movement::The return-to-office demands make little sense from an overall economic perspective, while working parents, in particular, benefit from not having to waste time commuting to an office, writes Peter Bergen.
The value of commercial buildings doesn’t go to zero. They’re just cut in half (based on recent sales prices).
Just because the price of an asset goes down doesn’t mean the economy crumbles. In fact, buyers / renters are now better off. I’m sure poor Grandmas are in that category.
Pensions are paid off based on the booked value. If the asset you own is worth half of what you paid for it that is a problem. If you bought a house for 1 million and you need to sell it to pay for something else and can only get 500k are you prepared for eating that loss?
Of course I can guess your answer because you probably feel you know better than the vast majority of governments and economists but that’s a moot point by now.
I’m not claiming to know the answer because I understand it’s complex enough to not.
What I am confident in is that despite what you or I say is but a drop in how serious the issue is. The difference is I’m not wasting energy screaming into the wind.
You really are invested in this topic, it’s odd.
No pension fund owns only commercial real estate. If anything, it’s like 5% of their entire portfolio. Still, it’s not necessarily a problem.
So in your simplified scenario, you have a pension paying retirees that owns 100% of a building. Say few businesses want to lease space in the building, and the value goes down.
They don’t have to sell the building. They can just refurbish it and put the retirees in it. That’s actually more tax efficient than paying the retirees who then pay their retirement home.
If governments and economists got us into this mess, then yeah, I guess we do know better than them.