Ortel: It's Impossible to be Optimistic About the Future

In this Tech Ticker interview by Aaron Trask, Charles Ortel, managing director at Newport Value Partners lists two reasons for his pessimism:

1. We're raising the cost of employment.
2. We're encouraging companies to shift jobs offshore. 

This is exactly the opposite of what should be done to recover from the Great Recession. Ortel rightly points to private sector employment as a good indicator of the state of our economy. He cites growth in government, higher taxes, increased regulation and virtually every major legislation passed by the Obama Administration as contributing to the problems in private sector employment.

Note: This blog should not be taken as Democrat/Obama bash-fest. It is just a fact of life that presently Democrats are in power and they are the ones currently ratcheting up government intervention.

Nevertheless, the Bush Administration has a lot to answer for as well. The tremendous increase in the rate of growth in government spending began during the Bush Administration, not when Obama took office. The further centralization of education was the result of Bush's No Child Left Behind program. The first TARP bailout bill was a Bush initiative as well. Bush pushed for large increases in foreign aid spending. Before Obama, Bush was the great interventionist-in-chief.

As the Psalmist says "Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation" (Ps. 146:3).