thanks jim our final call from the market with our guest sam zell... exhale... aflac! and a gentle wave-like motion... liberate your spine... aflac! and reach, toes blossoming... not that great at yoga ya but when i slipped a disc, he paid my claim in just one day. so he had your back? yup in just one day, we process, approve and pay. one day pay. only from aflac yes or no?gin. do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left. let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online. . >>> i want to give a sincere thanks for our guest this morning is sam zell. it is hard to get you to speak frankly and bluntly. you wrote a book, right? >> right, "am i being too subtle"? it is really a

in the company's advertising business is an opportunity investor sam zell joined "squawk box" earlieren to what he had to say. >> if you look at amazon and you look at the multiple that amazon trades at, you could make a case that says that in order to justify the multiple it trades at, amazon needs to be 25% of the u.s. economy in five years the last time i did that calculation was 1997 and the company in 1997 was cisco. >> well, joining us now to weigh in on that and the rest of the group, victor anthony and paul meeks, chief investment officer and portfolio manager. good to see you both here. victor, when it comes to amazon, so price target is $1600 on the street that's a 20% upside. so it's not as if on a percentage gain basis it's out of the realm but what do you think about this deal about what kind of assumptions about amazon's growth and market share have to underlie a lot of upside to the stock right now? >> i think the difference compared to cisco back then in the '90s, the difference is that amazon has benefited from a significant shift to retail dollars moving over to the

part of the critique of this is that you're going to be taking a more active approach, and we had sam zelln the day the letter was released. >> you are sure i was watching >> i hope you were he said i didn't know larry fink was made god why should a passive fun, why should you do anything more than be completely a passive fund and let the market do what it does >> great question. as i said in my letter, an active manager, if they don't like it, they can sell they don't have to own it. s a a pas a passive investor we have to own the companies in an index. whatev half are good. half are underperforming we have to have a voice if we're going to try to be the highest level of fiduciary on behalf of our clients. our investors are asking for this a big component talk to us about your corporate stewardship team. so we have 35 people the largest team in the investment universe. our team is inadequate now so i committed to raise the team to 70, 75 people we put in barbara novak, a great reputation in many circles already. it's about us being engaged. what i said loudly is being engaged during a pro

0.6% in the past year maybe it could fall another 0.6% that might be an experiment worth trying >> sam zell here yesterday he thinks it's because we have not seen productivity gains, and ultimately without productivity gains you won't see wage growth. what do you think? >> that's a big part of it if you see wage growth, a lot has come from employment, not enough there productivity we need a big pick up in productivity to have sustained economic growth in the future. that could happen. there's a lot of exciting innovation we need to figure out how to harness it. >> what's wrong with productivity what has been wrong? there's so many different people who say -- different answers from it's not being measured correctly to we just changed fundamentally and we can't do it anymore. >> i don't think the measurement issue changed a lot over times i wouldn't pay attention to that half the problem is businesses are not investing enough investment has picked up >> the latest numbers we've seen, that's the bigger one. >> half of that has been in one category, which is oil and gas oil prices up 40%. that'

sam zell pulled us earlier that when you talk about commercial real estate, it becomes less attractivencrease. we are building 387,000 multifamily units in this country, meaning a lot of people are employed. let's talk to a real estate owner. tom barrack, colony northstar owner. what is your view? tom: whatever sam says, i go with. [laughter] alix: i'm sure he loves to hear that. tom: he's hardly wrong. there areou feel like bubbles approaching or there is still value to be made? tom: it is a bubble in capital. it is not a bubble as we have experienced to them in the past. sam is obvious right -- obviously right. renters ship is increased to 69% as homeownership has decreased. we had a single-family rental that has proved to be very viable. on the commercial side come on the retail side, on the industrial side, supply has not been as exorbitant as it has in the past, but supply of money, central banks intervening, the liquidity flood, the attractiveness of safety or capital preservation has been the private markets, as well as the public markets for real estate. it feels bubblicious. i

he has changed the environment whether it is sam zell talking about it this morning on a conference callthey're trying hard to be non political through there is deregulation teheme running through this lets not forget, as much as the president wants it and deserves it, looking around the world, i mean around the world, it is a global synchronized bull market and not just global synchronized economy. that helps him and i am sure he's not focused on other countries but it does help him, definitely >> um, guys, i want to take a look at shares down 5% on friday, we had a news organization of a wrap report of cbs and viacom getting together. i know the situation pretty well and i think it is worth weighing into help inform people. when we reported on november 6th. the murdoch considering selling much of the empire he put together over the last 30 years of disney which he did announcing a month and a half after we reported it, family control of immediate companies found themselves rethinking everything not just families but the management teams and among those, certainly national amusements co

sam wise is joining us and chief investment strategy 'tis with key bank to be clear sam zell is in a different -- he's probably more worried about capital press race rather than growth still, given all the amazing stuff that's happening, does it -- and raise a little more cash, even for the every man out there? >> yes is the short answer we have ridding this bull for all it's worth so far. last year in fab, even our most conservative target was up over 11% with the more aggressive funds over 20% they're looking rosy, but has not had a halo effect yesterday. >> we're very good of asking people like you and bruce what to buy how about this if you want to hedge your puts, you have a couple sectors, consumer staples, and quite frankly the safest place to be, i have to raise the issue, is cash i don't know that there's any safe havens in the stock market at this point? >> what do you think >> we've seen this tremendous rally. we're setting some targets. >> what's hyperbolic -- >> a lot of things you said could have been hyperbolic. >> absolutely. when you look in particular, they have gon

is it under priced and i ask this because we've had guys like sam zell who have told us there's irrationale that for a while. >> what do you think >> i'm not trying to avoid your question, but we don't really get paid to make that judgment we're really trying to find things that are out of the general flow of mutual funds, out of the general flow of etfs, things that are event driven than market driven. >> is it tough to find things that you think are reasonable deals? because the amount of liquidity has boosted prices across the board? >> it's been tough for a while now, but actually the increase in the stock market has helped in some respects andrew mentioned risk arbitrage, for example. because of the slow pace of antitrust approvals together with a lot of fixed priced deals that have been announced but not approved yet, when the stock market moves up so much the floor value of those stocks if a deal doesn't happen goes up quite a lot, therefore, your risk is actually quite a bit lower. in fact, maybe you're better off without the deal onthe table. >> what's your biggest deal you're pla