The loss of jobs has hurt the projected returns, holding companies back from expanding and landlords from being able to raise rents, Zell said. “Two years ago, firms were putting in hockey stick projections that rents were going to go up, but that didn’t happen,” he said. “The good news is nothing has been built since July 2007.” However, he said office space use is shrinking due to remote-work technology, and landlords are going to have to work harder to fill the same amount of space.

Zuckerman said consumer confidence is down to levels not seen since World War II, and he also blamed the current administration. “People have lost complete confidence in this economy and in leadership,” he said. “There’s 25 million people unemployed or underemployed. We’ve not hit bottom and no one knows where the bottom is. We don’t have soup lines now because there’s 10 million unemployment checks going out.”

He said his solution would be to eliminate all special exemptions and earmarks from the tax code and simplify it, a move Zuckerman said would free up $800 billion. “We look at our government, and it doesn’t work when you have both sides that are dysfunctional and just firing guns at each other,” he said.

Both men also agreed that housing losses are still causing a large problem in economy. Prices have dropped about 32.5%, and up to nine million distressed homes need to be cleared out of the market. “If we get another 10% drop in prices, which is expected, you’ll add another 10 million homes,” Zuckerman said.

“This country seems to function best when there’s 62% home ownership, but beyond that there’s always been a crisis,” Zell said. “We have to clear out the market. There’s pools of zombie owners making no payments and other large pools of owners only making partial payments. Time alone won’t solve this problem,” he said.

As for global markets, both men said they are concerned about the Middle East problems. A few of the countries that are shrugging off dictatorships are still very anti-United States, Zell said, and Zuckerman said the Obama Administration should be handling the situation privately, rather than public speeches. “They don’t know how to play the game,” Zuckerman said.

Known for his global expertise, Zell said demand is what draws him, and he pointed to places such as Mongolia as new frontiers for investment. “The country is 3.5 million people and about the size of Europe, and they are building what will be the world’s largest copper and gold mine. I think that country could grow 30% per year over the next five years,” Zell said.