Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 10th of September 2018 to The Sounding Line.
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Sam Zell, businessman, real-estate mogul, and Chairman of Equity Group Investments, recently spoke with Fox Business News about his views on the ongoing US trade negotiations with Canada and Mexico, as well as his outlook for the US economy.
Sam Zell:
“I think that the trade issues are issues that probably should have been brought up a long time ago. These agreements are old and… after 25 years of NAFTA, which had a lot of foreign policy elements to it, adjusting it makes sense. It’s hard for me to believe that any resolution here is not going to include both Mexico and Canada.”
Maria Bartiromo:
“Canada is sticking to its guns and basically saying we can’t lose this, we can’t lose that. There are certain things that it’s not going to move on.”
Sam Zell:
“But the one thing that they can’t lose is NAFTA… It feels like it’s going to get resolved. I happened to talk to one of the Mexican negotiators last week who was very enthusiastic about getting it done. So, I think the momentum is in the same direction.”
Sam Zell on the US economy:
“Everybody’s been predicting the next two year slowdown for about four years now… and for four years we haven’t had an end to ‘the longest string of positive scenarios,’ almost ten years of a positive environment… I think the question, and I asked a Nobel Prize winner this question about six months ago, (is): We have just come through eight years of subpar growth. The US system is built for give-or-take a 3% growth rate. Now that we have had 10 years of less than 2%, so do you have an end to it or do you have to have a catch-up before there is an end to it? I don’t know the answer and by the way the Nobel Laureate didn’t know the answer either.”
That question: how long can the US economy experience accelerating growth this late in an economic expansion amid deteriorating global economic conditions, is the question of the day. Time will tell.
There is more to the interview so enjoy it above.
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I like Sam, he probably doesn’t remember but he helped me out on a deal back in the mid 80s.
While he doesn’t say that “it is currently difficult to say just where this economy is going,” he kinda does.
I totally agree with his assessment of the FANG stocks and expect an adjustment in values going forward.