A prominent Fortune commentator has issued a provocative suggestion: Private equity firms have a unique opportunity to start changing the short-term orientation of Wall Street in a way that would allow for more job creation.

After all, one big advantage of the private equity business is that you do not have pubic shareholders demanding short term results. But what you have instead are limited partners, who frankly want short term results. And that often translates into demands for short-term progress from a valuation perspective at individual portfolio companies.

It would be nice for portfolio companies to start hiring, but that's not going to happen unless the companies' business conditions warrant such hiring. Frankly, it would be hard to ask private equity firms to hire for the sake of hiring. What we need is for the economy to take off to lift demand across the board and to essentially force companies to hire. That's a bit simplistic; companies just might choose to outsource overseas. But in our system-for better or worse-that's the deal.

What would it take to end the short-term orientation? Our corporate governance model has a long history and will not easily change. But the fact remains that as long as company execs feel that their only real imperative is to serve shareholders, the modern workplace will always be topsy-turvy. Sustained growth can mask these issues, but such growth has been tough to come by.

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