Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

WF employees going into the office won't impact CRE in any meaningful way. Maybe in a really really big hub, like Charlotte it could have a very slight impact, but we simply don't have the numbers to move the needle really.

Part of the problem is Wells Fargo holds the mortgages on a lot of the commercial real estate. If city centers decline, companies might default on their mortgages. We already see this happening in some cities such as San Francisco: Wells Fargo's official headquarters city.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-22/pimco-owned-office-landlord-defaults-on-1-7-billion-mortgage#xj4y7vzkg

It doesn't look good when Wells Fargo keeps insisting that it's HQ is San Francisco (in spite of the CEO not being based there in forever) and the banking and real estate market of San Francisco is in collapse. Anybody else watched those videos on Youtube where people walk up and down downtown and every single shop is out of business and every office is vacant?

Yeah, Wells is probably the mortgage holder on a bunch of that real estate. So it's not just the governments. WF orders RTO because WF is going to be in trouble if there's a commercial real estate crash.

Real reason is this-
Incompetent leaders usually have nothing to do, and nothing to show for in their performance reviews.
So they create an illusion of exercising control by implementing RTO
AND
They don’t have any idea how to increase productivity. They cannot do the simple calculation that if someone spends 3 hrs. commenting, that is a waste.

And the incompetent manager says - out of my hands, talk to HR.
And the incompetent HR team says - what can we do, talk to your manager

This is what the offshore leaders are doing, what they learned in their substandard country is what they are spreading here..

Absurd,,but true !!

They can force us to waste hours driving to an office in the city, but they can’t force us to spend time or money there. I have not spent a penny in or near the Minneapolis campus since RTO. No gas, no food, no shopping or socializing. Go in, stare at screen all day, get out and back to my actual life and family in the burbs. F*ck RTO.

This is ridiculous. These “other businesses” and real estate agents need to learn how to pivot. People migrate, people change course when things aren’t working or to go after opportunities. If you have a business relying on downtown, time to move if you don’t like the current situation. When selecting a location, you were smart about it and picked a highly populated area that made you tons of money. You decided to stick it out not realizing this was a major shift and things weren’t just going to go back to the same? Then, that’s on you d umbo. Target put money into that stadium and THAT is why their name is on it. They don’t exist to fund your hotdog stand or whatever. No one owes you!!

@1tfv+1ohQxm1p

Well said. Governments forcing businesses to force workers into offices so as to pull money out of the suburbs and transfer it to the urban areas is redistribution of wealth. That's the very basis of socialism. Forced RTO by the city leaders on companies is enforcement of socialism.

@gdr+1ohQxm1p

Intentionally flushing time and money down the drain because politicians want them to prop up a antiquated model is not capitalism. Cities became cities originally for group defensive purposes, but later because logistical hubs are helpful for manufacturing, leveraging local natural resources, and distribution of product. The problem is that later we started housing white collar staff employees in these places, and those places have, for various reasons, become very very expensive to develop/buy/lease.

Enter the information age, which links everyone and everything and makes physical location largely irrelevant for such roles. That puts businesses generally at a cross roads. Capitalism says WFH. It's much cheaper, it's much more resilient (imagine if Cantor Fitzgerald employees were mostly WFH...), it virtually eliminates HR drama and a huge amount of liability related expenses, and it helps recruiting, retention, and employee satisfaction. Looking at the economy as a whole it allows society to utilize/monetize the valuable time that for decades has been wasted commuting. We're talking about zillions of man hours across the economy that can be harnessed.

This is how capitalists would do things. RTO isn't about capitalism at all because it's a massive and completely unnecessary waste of resources that could be utilized elsewhere. Capitalism abhors such inefficiency.

And they are going to fire someone in Info Sec because he can’t come back to work as he has to look after his dying father.

Thus RTO has been criminalized.

Will the CEO be held responsible if something happens to this employee because he was distracted and had to come to work during this tough period?

This should be punishable by law, Mr. CISO !!

@gdr yes, you're right. It is capitalism. They were dependent on an indifferent corporation based 2 thousand miles away. That corporation made a choice that was good for itself and these companies that had zero other reason for existing all of a sudden became irrelevant.

Yep, that is capitalism. They should have diversified their income streams. Diversity is what keeps things from being too risky.

@wuh+1ohQxm1p meanwhile this is literally Capitalism and Entrepreneurship. How do you think cities become cities in the first place? Ffs

Even if they make people go into office they are not spending boat loads of cash on food because prices are too high !!!

People bring lunch more
People buy groceries and cook

Blame inflation

When people who shifted to WFH, their spending shifted with them. How come no one feels sorry for the places in the suburbs that are now suffering because people are no longer going to businesses close to their home because they're forced to go downtown.

Why should I feel sorry for the Downtown Starbucks not getting my business? But not worry about the local coffee shop by my house losing my business? Personally, I'd rather support my local community than some other place that I'm only at during the day.

I just saw a video of the Wells Fargo on Nicollet in Minneapolis. Before it was burned down in the riots there was a large homeless encampment in front.
How can Wells guarantee the safety of their employees with mentally ill homeless people all around?
This article has the embedded video with the interview about the area.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/08/23/unlivable-minneapolis-slips-into-hellhole-status-by-default-n573002

"An entire ecosystem of restaurants, office towers, and apartments serving Target workers and vendors had come to depend on the company's employees being in the office."

Seems like there's a saying about putting all your eggs in one basket.