The images of children being separated from their asylum-seeking parents are too horrible to bear. In fact, there are so many things about the immigration debate that bring out our strongest feelings it seems almost impertinent to try to make a logical, less emotional argument, but that is part of the problem. The fact is, we need immigrants more than ever, and not just PhDs, but immigrants who can supplement our labor force in a variety of ways. It astonishes me that seemingly smart people don’t get this. GDP is essentially a factor of workforce and productivity so without workforce growth it is virtually impossible to achieve sustainable economic growth. Our population is growing at an anemic pace and more people are aging out of the workforce than aging into it. It’s basic math. Without a growing number of people to work and buy things, our economy will cease to grow — and all the tax cuts and deregulation in the world won’t change that. The good news is that the U.S. is a great place to live and work and people from all over the world still want to come here. This is a blessing and something most other countries simply do not have. An interesting story that most people don’t know is when Trump announced he was ending DACA, the State Department fielded calls from several industrialized nations who all expressed a similar message “if you don’t want them, we’ll take them”. Don’t get me wrong, illegal immigration is harmful on multiple levels, including how the immigrants themselves are frequently exploited, but those people come to this country for one reason – because there is work for them here. Otherwise they wouldn’t come, plain and simple. The solution to our workforce problem and our illegal immigration problem is the same, we need to substantially increase the number of legal immigrants into the country. It’s time the immigration debate moves from an emotional argument to an economic argument.
This week's big news in real estate was the settlement of the class action lawsuits directed against the National Association of Realtors (NAR)...Despite what you may have heard from the media, if the settlement is approved, this would be a modest victory for both realtors and homebuyers. The lawsuit's deeply misguided proponents, including Steve Brobeck from the Consumer Federation of America, have been calling for an outright ban on broker cooperation. In that regard, they didn't get what they wanted.
For years, large companies have been outsourcing to India and China, but the politics with China is unpredictable at best, and India has its limitations as well...However, Mexico and Latin America are just on the other side of our southern border, in the same time zone as the U.S., and with a talented and plentiful population of eager workers. There are also a number of companies that make the process of hiring a nearshore team practically turn-key.
This week, in a brief to the judge of a major antitrust lawsuit known as Nosalek, the U.S. Department of Justice called for decoupling buyer and seller agent representation. If the DOJ gets what it wants, it would mean that listing agents would no longer be permitted to share their commissions with agents representing buyers, and buyers would have to pay out of pocket to have an agent represent them.