One of the unfortunate things about the monthly jobs numbers released by the Labor Department is that they only present half the picture. That is why the quarterly Business Employment Dynamics data, which was released last week for the third quarter 2009, can be so very useful. From this latest data release we now know [...]

Given all the yelling about ‘jobs, jobs, jobs,’ the SBA Office of Advocacy released a particularly timely report last week, aptly entitled An Analysis of Small Business and Jobs. The paper, authored by Advocacy economist Brian Headd, bills itself as a primer to help policy makers (and anyone else who happens to be interested) “understand [...]

Payroll employment declined by 11,000 in November and the unemployment rate edged down slightly, to 10.0%. It’s a sign of the times that the news was greeted with a certain amount of relief and cautious optimism in certain quarters in Washington. But while the politicians are sniping among themselves about whether or not the decline [...]

The President is in Asia at the moment, doing unheard-of but very American things like holding town hall meetings in China and bringing his very own Obama-ness to the Pacific Rim. Of much more concern to us is the fact that, just before he left, he announced that he would be holding a forum on [...]

If the last ten years have taught us anything, it is that both money and wealth will gravitate to themselves in much the same way that water molecules are attracted to each other.

What that means, if you’re talking about water, is that wet sponges soak up more liquid than dry sponges. If you’re talking about money and wealth, it means that full purses soak the economy more thoroughly than empty ones.

That is why the pre-occupation of the White House and Congress with economic growth, and their apparent belief that markets are sacrosanct, might best be described as misguided.

What’s going to have to happen before our nation’s leaders make the connection between jobs and microbusinesses?

Well, more than one connection, really.

There’s the easy stuff, the screamingly obvious connection between microbusiness employers and the millions of jobs they create. But there’s also the nonemployers — and that’s a subject that requires enough real thought to be daunting for the average public servant.