Banks have a F__ ton of debt on their "off balance sheet" books called CMBS.
CMBS loans are valued based on the rents collected.
If you are home working, you are not going to the city to buy overpriced shoes, over priced meals away from home, or overpriced anything that comes from being in the city. Those over priced goods pay tiny profit to store owner, but the bulk of that overprice feeds into location opportunity (aka rent) they pay to the building manager who pays the debt to the trust, who pays the loan to the CMBS, who pays the bank and the investors....Aka - if you are working from home then you are not supporting this albatross of big city bank debt.
If businesses in city start to close and no one comes in to fill those vacant shops, well, CMBS valuations begin to drop....which leads to a domino effect of failed loans, which feed into failed trusts, which feed into failed CMBS bonds, and then suddenly, the house of cards that is the USA financial system collapses.
If you saw the movie "The Big Short" - its kinda like that, except this time its not residential properties that are going t!ts up.....this time its those loans for properties like Trump towers that lied about their revenue, and when it didnt materialize, get "written down" in valuation. And CMBS is MAGNATUDES LARGER than RMBS stuff portrayed in that movie.
https://www.salon.com/2021/03/12/slumping-trump-properties-under-manhattan-da-probe-placed-on-debt-watch-lists-by-banks/
"But Trump's properties have never met their income targets, and banks like Wells Fargo are now warning investors that the properties "might not generate enough cash to cover their mortgage payments" amid the COVID-related slump, according to documents obtained by CBS.
"The loan is being monitored," a recent PNC Bank note obtained by the outlet warned investors.
Chainsaw wants you back in office because Wells Fargo has a few TRILLION CMBS off balance sheet debt + liability to pension funds and investors who bought all this cr-p. There is more debt they are on hook for than the book value of the company.
COVID has changed the world - why go to office when you can effectively work remote?
Well, the banks CMBS loans are not positioned for telework - they desperately need you back in the city to prop up their cr---y over leveraged securitized bonds else the banking system as we all know it goes POOF.
If there is a sudden re-evaluation of all that debt, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, BofA, etc - but mostly Wells Fargo cause they have the most of these cr---y deals - they go BANKRUPT and wave after wave of lawsuits come knocking on the door to accuse the bank of writing faulty loans.
For those trolls and keyboard warriors who say "IT CANT HAPPEN" - i remind you what happened to Wachovia....
And yes, I also know about the reserve requirement which Wells Fargo meets - 11% reserve. Well, 11% aint worth too much if 20-30% of the CMBS bonds go BO-M.
Invest wisely folks.....Less than 50% of USA population is fully vaccinated, and delta is rising rapidly. Flu season is just 2 months away...
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/reality-nycs-reopening-businesses-arent-coming-back