The Bill Is Coming Due on a Record Amount of Commercial Real Estate Debt

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 177 points –
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How does buying and renting an expensive office building to yourself extract wealth from the working class?

Because it is paid for with labor value that was stolen from the working class.

it raises the productivity requirements of the business to exist without actually returning any of the same money to the pockets of workers. Its similar to your boss owning your apartment and billing you for rent. You work harder, make less money and your boss makes more.

Its why there should be limits on the creation of shell companies and real estate trusts.

it raises the productivity requirements of the business to exist

I don't understand what this means? You mean the business has to make more money to pay the rent? Why would that obligation be necessary to "increase productivity requirements?".

yes the business has to sell more product to rent a place than buy it, generally. This is why venture capital often does exactly this when they buy a corporation - they seperate all the real estate to a shell company and raise rents, which lowers profits for the original company forcing managers to try to extract more from workers to maintain profits and prevent closures.

I want to say this is exactly what happened to albertsons and the cut that gets made is a reduction in wage increases.

which lowers profits for the original company forcing managers to try to extract more from workers to maintain profits and prevent closures.

That makes no sense. Why would you fabricate running costs of a business that the employees or managers will never see or care about?

If they sold these properties and these costs suddenly disappeared, are managers going to suddenly allow their employees to slack off because they "don't need" that much money? No. There's no such thing as "enough money" in a corporate environment.

This sounds a whole lot like a made-up conspiracy theory.

So explain why this is one of the many things Cerberus did after it bought albertsons-safeway and one of the resulting actions taken was to axe the pension program?

I can't. I don't know anything about that.

so why call people conspiracy theorists?

Because your explanation makes no sense

Yet it describes a real scenario that exists.

Maybe you'd like to explain it?

My understanding: In the case of Cerberus they wanted the original company to look less profitable' Afaik this is one of many accounting trick to make the portion of the business with the most negotiable costs (such as labor) as unprofitable as possible on paper so they can justify things like pension cuts. By splitting it up it obfuscates the finances to the unions and gives a negotiating advantage without really damaging investor profits and they can then sell the now more risky corporation off while keeping the real estate as part of their portfolio.

Like its not always this blatant and there's also some tax incentives and other things mixed in there but overall the goal of most businesses since the 80s is to move more money from wages ---> profits. If they can consolidate the market a little as well, that's bonus. "Competition is sin" after all.

Because they have to spend a fortune on rent and/or commuting to earn a living where all the jobs are.

Not forgetting that is is bosses who make the location decisions and they can afford to buy in those hugely expensive cities while the forced influx of workers pushes the price of housing up.

Companies should be taxed based on the in-work benefits required to make their location viable, regardless of their own wage structure.

Because they have to spend a fortune on rent and/or commuting to earn a living where all the jobs are.

And this benefits the business/property owner how?

The proposed strategy doesn't do anything except cost everyone more money.

Unless you've invested in property in the city you're forcing everyone into.