Month: December 2016

Opendoor

There is a deeper reason why I am excited about Opendoor, and it too is related to how the company’s approach differs from Zillow’s and Redfin’s. While Zillow makes it easier to look for new houses, and Redfin promises to save sellers a few bucks, making it trivial to sell a house has the potential to fundamentally impact our economy at a time we desperately need exactly that. Many, including myself, have written about how globalization and technology are upending the job market; one particular challenge is that often new jobs are created in different geographic areas than where job seekers are located.

To that end the potential for Opendoor to dramatically increase liquidity in the housing market by buying direct from sellers is not just a business opportunity, but one with the potential to increase dynamism in the job market. Granted, it will take a long time for Opendoor to move into the towns where this sort of service is most needed, but the idea is very much a move in the right direction.

After ISIS

the middle east will be messed up for decades.

The Islamic State could eventually lose control of Raqqa, but it is expected to regroup in remote areas, such as Al Bukamal and Al Qaim, along the Syria-Iraq border. The movement may be disrupted, but US officials concede that it will be almost impossible to totally dismantle it. An end to Syria’s wider 6-year war—in any way that both stabilizes one of the most important geostrategic countries in the Middle East and favors US interests—also seems increasingly remote. And the quest for a caliphate goes on. “Al Qaeda might lay claim to it for a moment, and the Islamic State may lay claim to it, but there’s always been this dream of recapturing and bringing back the caliphate. Who’s going to tap into that next?”