This turn of a phrase was widely reported from an address on the state of the US economy by President Obama’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers.  He spoke these words last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Summers is a very smart guy; he’s past president of Harvard University and former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton.

His quotable quote is consistent with what I’m hearing from the business owners who are members of my Vistage CEO group. Virtually all of my members’ businesses are growing and profitable; they’re optimistic about 2010, yet they’re not hiring. Why? They’re reluctant to bring on new employees until they understand how decisions made in Washington will impact their businesses. CEOs hate uncertainty; unfortunately elected officials don’t seem to understand this. If you check out the pedigrees of too many members of Congress, they read as follows: college, followed by law school, followed by a few years practicing law, followed by one elected office after another as they work their way up the political food chain. Most have never had to make a payroll; they’re clueless about how their votes impact the people who invest in plant and equipment, pay taxes and hire new workers.

As a result, my members are content to do more with less. They’ll curtail hiring, and stay lean; profits will go up and their current employees will earn bigger bonuses for shouldering more of the load. It’s good news for those with jobs and bad news for those looking for work.

I didn’t write this blog to rip on either political party. I’m feeling bad for my friends who are out of work, and if our political leaders want to know why Dr. Summers was right when he said we’re in the midst of a statistical recovery and human recession, just talk to the entrepreneurial class.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Mike's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.