Well to be fair I wouldn’t categorize the entire banking industry and investment capitalists who have over a trillion dollars in commercial mortgage backed real estate collateralized debt obligations invested in those office buildings as being from a bygone era.
TLDR It’s 2008 all over again. They bundled up commercial mortgages into securities that blackrock etc are heavily invested in. They are over leveraged because over the counter swaps still don’t require verified money in the bank to cover losses. If people are not forced to return they know the real estate market will implode and take Citibank Morgan Stanley etc with it
It’s the commercial mortgage backed securities market.
Remember 2008 when they bundled up all those home mortgages that were based on shitty unpayable loans and sold off securities to retirement funds etc? But then people couldn’t pay and the entire economy imploded resulting in massive bank failures?
Same deal. All those office space loans have been collateralized into securities. The 1% and the banking industry understand perfectly that if they don’t force people to return to office, the entire system will implode again. Even after Dodd Frank the regulations on over the counter derivatives are still mostly non existent.