Encouraging Investment Will Spur Job Growth: Hedge-Fund Manager

The people who do the hiring in this nation need more leadership out of Washington and more certainty from the Obama administration's attitude on capitalism, hedge-fund investorNelson Peltz told CNBC Monday.

"The landscape is cloudy. People don’t know what taxes are going to be," said the Trian Partners CEO, who favors a "flatter tax" than the current rates. "People don’t know that the [Obama] administration attitude toward capitalism is going to change back to where it should be. When there’s all these great question marks, people sit on their hands, and that’s what’s happened in this country."

Peltz was interviewed before President Obama announced $1.5 trillion in new taxes —primarily on the rich and corporations—as part of a plan to slow the nation's escalating national debt. The plan is expected to be opposed by House Republicans.

Peltz said adding jobs means encouraging investment, and "investment only comes from people who are millionaires and billionaires," or the people who run those companies.

"The fact is we’re not getting that investment because there is no confidence, and there’s no confidence because of what we saw happen in Washington last month" in the wrangling over the debt ceiling, he added.

"You might not have liked them, but [this country was] built by Carnegie and Rockefeller and Ford. Those are the guys who employ people," Peltz said. "Until we get that type of thinking back here where we encourage that kind of investment, we’re going to have what we [have] here."