barry sternlicht is the chairman and ceo of starwood capital. e you've seen the letter jamie makes comments about how the odds of a recession are even higher now you could be looking at this banking crisis continuing, not knowing when it ends but he also said that inflation could be much more stubborn than people realize and that could force the fed to raise rates even higher than people are anticipating what would you say to that >> first, i'm a huge fan of jamie's, so he runs probably one of the best banks in the world and hooste's been an amazing str of shareholder value we don't agree on everything i agree on the recession, as you know, from my last appearance. and i think, i think inflation is going to drop, hard and there's a cpi slide that i brought with me that shows why it is about the rent component of cpi and food is already dropping and energy was dropping. energy is a wild card. you can't actually model what the saudis just did. if they choose to keep energy prices high and inflation could be a little bit more stubborn. >> you brough

listen to what billionaire investor barry sternlicht told cnbc today. >> i think jamie is wrong. i think we're going into a serious recession and the government has a huge problem. they have a massive deficit and keep feeding the deficit. >> so what can we expect from the economy this year? we're always happy to see mario gabelli. mario, great to have you with us so who's right here? or who's more right here is it jamie dimon or barry sternlicht. >> great question, good way to start. basically from my point of view, the economy over the next couple of months is going to have a challenge. clearly the banks with regards to accounting, with regards to what's going on in the commercial real estate, what's going on with regards to funds flowing out i challenge. we've gone through bank crises this is my seventh since i've been investing in business but the banks are stronger so jamie is right about that and we'll figure this one out. with regards to the economy, the consumer sector, i think car sales will hold up i think the consumer is in okay shape. just look at the balance sheet of

we heard barry sternlicht talking on the show about some of those differentials, but it's clear in general rents are shrinking, but in some places, it's shrinking a lot faster than others and those tends to be the state that have out-migration. rents in new york, rents in california, et cetera. and rents in places like orlando or tampa, san antonio, tend to be more stable or shrinking less or maybe even growing modestly >> here's the thing, josh. amid all of this worry and the th distress and the banking problems and the fact that there are unresolved issues and the potentially harder landing, the stock market has held up relatively well. i saw there was a high-yield bond deal with a bunch of banks yesterday. that got done. people are buying cocoa bonds again. it feels like, i don't know do you think the market is being too complacent or is there a silver lining here in that the fed stops its aggressive hiking? >> i think the equity markets are being a bit complacent if you look at valuation markets off of next year's projections, you're still looking at numbers that look at 85 to 90th per

. >> we had people like barry sternlicht saying the fed is not getting the most up to date numbers andver more quickly than the official numbers they are tracking. obviously, there are concerns over what is happening in the banking sector and what it means with a potential credit crunch or contraction and how that impacting the economy. how are you managing it? >> on the banking concerns , we have weekly data from the fed. they have it more timely than we will we get the fed zone balance sheet and bank balance sheets which is delayed a week. we are watching that data. there is some deposits leading us, but not substantially. it seems like the last couple weeks things died down a little bit. we would expect there is tightening in lending because of this you see credit contraction and pull back in lending maybe later this year, i don't think you will see that effect on activity data right away. >> full speed ahead with the fed as far as you're concerned >> it is a tough position for them we are certainly watching some signs in the data this week for march that may be activity slowing a b

in dense areas where you can't build and one of the -- the bears on commercial real estate, barry sternlicht commercial real estate, you would take that off the table as a worry after listening to citi, wells fargo, jpmorgan >> scott wreck ler, one of the bigger owners here in new york city >> talk about midtown? >> yeah, midtown that certainly continues to be concern for some it's -- what was the commentary that -- what was it specifically that encouraged you about what you heard from the big banks >> charlie scharf was saying, listen, we are in new york, and we're in san francisco, so i was ready to lower the boom. he says, straightforward, look, our buildings are doing well, and we have a-buildings, and then jamie dimon pretty much dismissed it as an issue at all. our buildings are great. what's the problem everybody's current. they're giving you a level of granularity that you really feel they really are not concerned. >> i think if there is debt on many of these b-buildings that are 50 to 60% occupied at best, and facing an uncertain future, and about to ratchet up in terms of their loa

barry sternlicht yesterday was saying great things about how first republic has this really loyal clientase, but there was a defection yesterday of a major group of people who handled wealthy people from first republic to another -- went to another bank, and i say to myself, okay, are the rats -- they're not rats -- are the big brokers fleeing the ship that's what those guys are, these assets go out the door every day. that's the one -- it's like, we almost want to say, okay, just please get a lifeline so we can move on. >> right it is a cloudy picture for example, we got double upgrade of first citizens. got an upgrade of zion today >> that was under the category of, enough, i can't -- that's how we all feel. we come in, like, enough do we have to have a new metric that explains why zion's is not good there's a good piece in bloomberg. this is very much like 1990 to 1992, where the shorts would tell you, listen, we're going against bank of boston we can take that to zero now we're -- security pacific, that's next. then they ran into nations bank, and nations bank just said, no it's over

>> at blackstone, you mean, the distribution >> yeah, look, i just felt that he, along with barry sternlichtey say -- not all they say, they're very varied, but they're ready. they're ready for when the banks shut down. they're ready for when the commercial real estate goes under, david here's a statistic for you are you ready? >> i'm ready >> okay. commercial real estate, when it's a c property or d property, the land underneath is worth 40% of the building, and there you go you're going to have to blow the building up. there's no conversion. it's $700 or $800 a square foot to convert forget that. so, david, look for -- >> you don't want -- don't look for "c" or "d. >> no good >> you don't even want "b" for the most part. >> someone is going to say "b" is not as good >> gray said, listen, when you say commercial real estate, you're talking about a broad diversity of different types of properties from warehouses to datacenters to office space, and office space is not that large a percent of it. that said, sl green, jim, did report numbers the stock is down a bit. >> we don't have the call ye