Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is trying a unique strategy to get remote workers to return downtown: insulting them.
“I don’t know if you saw this study the other day,” Frey told an audience of 1,000 at Minneapolis Downtown Council’s annual meeting on Wednesday. “What this study clearly showed … is that when people who have the ability to come downtown to an office don’t — when they stay home sitting on their couch, with their nasty cat blanket, diddling on their laptop — if they do that for a few months, you become a loser!”
The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune, but there are serious facts to back up Frey’s worry about the impact of remote work on Minneapolis’ downtown economy.
What the fuck is wrong with this guy.
Clearly owns commercial/office real estate in the city.
and is funded by owners of said properties (FOR SURE)
Never forget who the real influencers of decisions are: The wealthy owners of property in this country.
If I paid him to say that I’d want my money back because that’s not exactly going to do achieve my goals.
working in office culture = more people in his city spending money day to day + more offices needed because workers are expected to be there + more property value from more property demand due to return to office culture.
Mayors of cities have a vested interest in having full office buildings which provide more funding to the city through worker/poor tax (sales tax) instead of corporate tax hikes.
If the ownership class stands to benefit from the status quo continuing they will 100% impose the status quo.
Sure, and you don’t accomplish that by insulting all your employees. This guy shot himself in the foot with a howitzer.
Yeah I know. My point is how is being an ass going to achieve that.
If I’m paying him to try to get people to come back to the office how is anything that he is doing achieving that goal?
Oddly enough Hennepin County doesn’t let you search property by owner or property tax payer.
https://www16.co.hennepin.mn.us/pins/?articleId=by_address
This is what happens when your education is CEO-pandering articles on Forbes and Fortune shoving “the workers are the problem and work-from-home is lazy and will kill your business” agenda so they get more views
Well he’s not exactly a great orator is he?
Presumably he is invested in getting people back into the office, so you would have thought that he would have tried something a little bit more likely to succeed than insulting people.
Politicians these days are just bad at being corrupt.
He has more money/power than is healthy for him or the rest of society…
This is the guy who showed up to a protest for the murder of George Floyd and everyone switched to chanting “Go home Jacob, go home” and “shame”. Dude just sucks.
He seems like an OK mayor for the city tbh but shit has gone downhill under him like the George Floyd thing which Domino’d to chaos over time.
This is probably a cascade from businesses wanting to end their lease on downtown offices, which is due to remote workers, which is why this dude is spazzing. It’s directly affecting the city income, budget, planning, etc. Just pushing it more towards chaos.
I see the reasons, but instead of putting everything back maybe try to move forward? I’m no city planner so I have no idea what another solution would be. Cheaper business startup costs to increase local markets?
A city is sort of like a business because there are budgets, income, expenses, etc. When you have no offices being leased, you will, as the city, lose.
Addition: he said it was a joke. It could’ve been. It could not have been. As I said before, he’s done an OK job. I’d feel inclined to belive it was a joke in poor taste. Perhaps a half joke. Idk man. It’s not super important in the grand scheme.
https://youtu.be/rFM2Yso7BGY
Good god. Thank you for bringing a sane, thoughtful take on the situation.
Yes. There are real monetary issues here and memes aren’t going to change that overnight.
And the real monetary issues are that the free market has spoken and the businesses, instead of listening to this Free Market that they worship so much, have instead propped up a failure of a decision for no reason other than they’ve already spent a bunch of money on it.
If MY business failed because I stuck too hard to a sunk cost fallacy, nobody would give a shit. So why is it a problem here? They should have invested better, or at the very least, seen which way the wind is blowing and adapt appropriately.