Viewers but not his name I just have a message We can get behind that The Russian the 24 year old road for all to see no war please This after fellow Russian tennis stars and Neil Medvedev's promise to promote world peace after becoming the world's number one tennis player last week I'm Scott Carr New home sales are down as mortgage rates rise the commerce department says sales of new single-family homes fell four and a half percent in January to an annual rate of just over 800,000 units higher prices sidelines some first time buyers as mortgage rates neared three year highs The median price of a new house in January top $423,000 That's up more than 13% from a year ago And in music history news on this date in 1995 former Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant kicked off a yearlong world tour in Pensacola Florida in support of their live no quarter reunion album I'm Chris And I'm Susanna Palmer in the Bloomberg newsroom Western nations have agreed to impose drastic new sanctions on Russia aimed at further isolating Russia's economy and financial system this after president Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine a joint decision was announced today to cut some Russian banks off from the swift messaging system In addition the nations said they would act together to impose restrictions on Russia's Central Bank which would keep it from using international reserves in ways that could undermine sanctions Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can't find any great companies at the right price to buy so he keeps buying back his own stock and shipping away at his cash pile to do so Bloomberg's Katherine Czech covers Berkshire Hathaway for Bloomberg Even called repurchases a mildly attractive option that they've been able to deploy And it was one of his biggest expenditures actually in this past year in terms of deploying his capital And he really showed no signs of changing course on that Berkshire bought back a total of $27.1 billion last year the highest annual level since Buffett began more aggressively repurchasing stock in 2018 And as I said the buybacks helped to chip away at that Berkshire near record $146.7 billion cash pile Buffett said in his annual letter today that the buybacks make good sense amid less attractive alternatives Mayor Eric Adams is continuing his campaign to keep people from sleeping in the New York City subway system We get more about that from Bloomberg's Denny's Pellegrini Adam says the city is dismantling every homeless encampment it finds in the system because they are just not acceptable And this comes after the MTA's new trespass task force found 350 people living in 29 different encampments in subway stations and tunnels Fox 5 reports they have since been removed by the police Denise Pellegrini Bloomberg radio Globally was 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg quicktake Powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries I'm susannah Palmer This is Bloomberg Bloomberg opinion informed perspectives and expert data driven commentary on breaking news Welcome to Bloomberg opinion on Bloomberg radio Bring you news comments and insights from Bloomberg opinions worldwide team of editors and columnists I'm your host June grosso This week we'll suspending the gas tax lower prices for consumers Also on the show our big retailers like Walmart inflation proof plus why the metaverse is looking more and more like a safety nightmare But we begin with immigration President Joe Biden made immigration a point of emphasis while addressing Congress last year as his presidency was getting underway Let's end our exhausting war immigration For more than 30 years politicians have talked about immigration reform and we've done nothing about it It's time to fix it Democrats have introduced immigration legislation that would give a small boost to the number of employment based green cards the U.S. issues But Bloomberg's editorial board believes the Biden administration's approach to immigration has been haphazard at best Bloomberg opinion editor ramesh retina argues the administration should do more to address the matter and their legislation ought to be guided by two basic principles Immigrants help grow the economy and border security needs to be strictly enforced I can't figure out Biden's approach to immigration Tell us what you see I think the administration's approach has been pretty muddled The president came in to office promising to fix a lot of the policies pursued by the previous administration which President Biden and a lot of Democrats feel were inhumane in some cases even unconstitutional And so there has been an effort to alter some of those policies at least rhetorically And try to create a more sort of humane system The problem is that what's happened is a huge surge in people coming to the southern border has put incredible pressure on the system and forced the administration to backtrack And what's happened in the process is that the idea of comprehensive reform has really fallen by the wayside because the crisis at the border is so severe It's just hard to make any traction on the kinds of reforms that are ultimately necessary to create a more effective system Let's start with the border What's the solution to the problems at the border One of the problems that the administration is facing is you have people coming to the border and no real way to process efficient way the sheer number of people who are coming to the border So they've used an authority that president Trump invoked at the beginning of the pandemic which essentially allows the United States to turn people away without allowing them to even claim asylum under the pretense of a public health emergency So what's happened is a lot of people are coming to the border and not even entering into the system and entering the process of applying for asylum and ultimately either getting an up or down determination And those folks are just coming back So there's a lot of basically repeat border crossers who are being apprehended and then sent back But it's not really doing anything to resolve the underlying issue And so one of the tools that the administration has by court order been forced to reinstate is the remain in Mexico policy which basically says that if you come to the United States and apply for asylum you'll have to remain in Mexico while your case is adjudicated And that is one way in which the administration could relieve some of the pressure but there are a whole other range of reforms that would need to be put in place including addressing the sort of root causes which is something that the administration has talked a lot about But remain in Mexico is one tool at their disposal that if implemented more broadly more humanely could potentially ease some of those problems at the border Right now legal immigration is weighted in favor of immigrants with families here Should that be changed I think a lot of folks in the business community a lot of lawmakers and policymakers on both sides of the aisle support efforts to increase the number of immigrants with specialized skills folks who can help the knowledge economy increase those numbers coming into the U.S. The problem with their system is that there is a set number of green cards that are issued and those are overwhelmingly issued to people with family ties in the United States The idea would be if you had a more skills based system similar to what is used in Canada and Australia and some other countries you would have preferences and give points to immigrants based on their skills That could potentially help to fill some labor shortages but also be a real boost to the economy But moving toward that kind of skills based system will require a real comprehensive look at immigration and that just hasn't been available politically With the problems that Biden is facing COVID Ukraine inflation supply chain on and on it seems that immigration is just not at the top of the list Maybe not even at the middle of the list You know I think that's partly the case I think there was an effort to put some of these reforms into the build back better legislation which for a variety of reasons has fallen apart partly because it was so broad and unwieldy There may be an opportunity for the administration going forward to find support on both sides of the aisle for more limited efforts to increase legal immigration particularly for people who can help with meeting some of the economic needs of the country has I think comprehensive reform you're right is probably not going to happen in this Congress or the next one But it could be an opportunity for more limited steps that would improve the system maybe not reform it entirely but point.