https://archive.is/2022.02.14-202112/https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/the-true-cost-of-empty-offices/21807703

Rather than lowering rents, landlords are offering more freebies than ever to retain tenants or attract new ones. In Manhattan, cash gifts for tenants—typically used for kitting out new office space—have more than doubled since 2016. Across America, the average number of rent-free months has risen to its highest since 2013. Some property developers remain optimistic, betting that demand for office space will eventually bounce back. But with each new variant of covid-19, plans for a wide-scale return to the office have been delayed, and delayed again. And changing patterns of attendance look set to reduce the overall demand for space.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]
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      2 years ago

      That would be a cool sci-fi story. Something like 11/22/63 but in reverse, it would mostly be historical fiction about Marx's drunken shenanigans with a backdrop of his desperate attempt (writing the manifesto and Capital etc) to save the world from the future he came from, only to ultimately have us wind up back where we are now.

    • emizeko [they/them]
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      2 years ago

      part of it is because he lived before everyone was fully transformed into a liberal subject