there is a 1.2 trillion dollar corporate real estate debt bubble caused by speculative investing during COVID that absolutely cannot be allowed to crash in 2024. its so monumentally important the president of the united states even threw his weight behind it in symbolic gesture (arguably because he and his friends have investment portfolios they dont want to see take a haircut in a recession) https://www.hrdive.com/news/mandatory-return-to-office-400k-...
remote work means the death of major cities and a cascade failure of major economic sectors that are barely back after covid as it is. once office space cant be leased the property holders will declare bankruptcy. states then get hit with budget shortfalls as tax revenue is lost, small businesses and service industries in the cities fall apart and the unemployment rate rises, urban blight sets in and an entire legion of major real estate spends 20 years moribund and zombified, with bankrupt property holdings and trusts owning most of the decayed ruins as crime rises. Think cabrini green and watts during the mid eighties. All those Erewhon, whole foods and trader joes will turn into boarded window crack houses and garrisons for gang warfare.
make no mistake, your relative comfort will be exchanged for the status quo, its just a matter of when not if. the president even earmarked 10bn dollars as a sign of goodwill to the landed gentry in order to "remodel" downtown high rises from commercial to residential, although anyone with even a cursory understanding of how real estate and development works (including the biden administration) understands this will almost certainly be pocketed to pay near-term creditors and stave off immediate foreclosures of properties instead.
to prevent something like this you'd have to have an administration that could act against its vested interests as a ruling class in order to secure a more verdant employment for you (and you probably wont find that in the gerontocracy.) the current fight isnt remote-vs-office, its a fight to get a handful of major companies still "hybrid" and "remote" to toe the line. Whether this happens in time to avert a real estate crisis is yet to be seen, but it hasnt made much headway in 2023, so theres not a lot of incentive to think 2024 will differ.