I'm not seeing that luxury investment housing, though. The newly built houses are usually +/- cheap junk at premium prices. At the same prices there's a low supply of 30-40 year old homes, but of a way way better quality. And in any case, new construction + available supply is nowhere near enough to meet the demand. What folks without 500k/year are doing I don't know.
What opportunities? Tell me how an average cashier can land an average 150k/year job in a metro area? Don't forget that the said cashier has mediocre intelligence, so-so appearance, zero charisma and little talking skills. He might swap grocery store for an oil change shop, but that's about it. Our society is mostly stratified now, with a little upward mobility left for high-tech workers.
I'm not sure how one would survive on 60k for even 10 years. This isn't an "investable" amount and it's not enough for food, yet along housing expenses.
From their perspective, it would be rational to cut a deal with JPMC: they bring workforce back to offices, landlords get their money and give a % of that to a few execs at JPMC. And all the health related problems won't be a JPMC's problem. In some sense, JPMC's execs suggest to burn the workforce now, pocket the extra money, and depart to greener pastures (less contaminated with viruses) shortly before the fallout.
Professional scientists can't bet their reputation on a novel idea: a 1% chance it'll work out and 99% chance the scientist will be sent to academia's exile. It's better than what would've happened to them in medieval ages, though.
In past, many of the breakthru ideas came from aristocrats: they were rich enough to not give a shit about their reputation in academia.
In some sense, the modern institute of science is somewhat like an orthodox church: a few pre-approved lines of thinking with a swift punishment for heretics.
This is the biggest strength of science: this rigidness of thought is what protects it from clever charlatans. But this is also its biggest weakness because this risk-averse behavior, when scientists can't risk saying unapproved things without torpedoing their own reputation, is why science makes only tiny steps. Right now physics has reached a rather big obstacle on its way and the usual risk-averse-one-tiny-step-at-a-time tactics won't work.
I'm not a vegan of any sort, but one day I realized that I hadn't eaten meat for really long time and I didn't really want to anymore. That must have something to do with fruits: there's definitely some almost material "energy" in them and eating sandwiches with meat feels like chewing paper sometimes. 10 years ago my diet was almost entirely meat.
You know what? I have a clever idea: the Diversity Standard 500 index, or just DS500. We have this SP500 index: a weighted sum of 500 companies into which everyone invests piles of money. The weights are carefully set by the index committee, which gives them outrageous power over the money flow. DS500 shares the same idea: a highly diverse committee would choose a weighted list of desirable traits, and the gov would use these weights to apply the tax code. From time to time the weights would be revisited to reflect the new trends.
As funny as it sounds, we're watching the formation of "progressive fundamentalists" - their "inclusion committee" would give people a low social score if their skin isn't black enough, or their gender is too male or sexual orientation is too straight. And inquisition, of course, would be watching for heretics and send them to "inclusion re-education camps".