I would venture to guess that there is no other national news publication, even one focused on small businesses, that spends as much time and virtual ink as I do on the humble nonemployer business.

As I am sure you have probably guessed, there is a reason for that. In fact, there are several.

However tempting it might be to dismiss them, it is hard for me to do that when they comprise almost 8 of every 10 businesses in the country.

Chalk it up to my populist impulses; that's just too large a chunk of the whole to be ignored.

In fact, that is something that is worth thinking about all by itself, isn't it? With all the emphasis placed on job creation by policy makers, isn't it curious that the vast majority of U.S. firms choose not to go the employer route?

Do you suppose somebody might give some thought to the reasons for that at some point? Wouldn't you?

If you wanted me to do something and you offered me all kinds of rewards and incentives to get me to do it and I still refused, wouldn't you wonder why? If I can get a few to ask themselves that question, I will feel that I have accomplished something fairly major.

While we're at it, I sometimes wonder why lawmakers don't stop to ask themselves what people are doing when the start their nonemployer businesses, especially the ones that stay nonemployer businesses, sometimes for decades.

Don't they ever ask themselves what the owners of all those amazingly small businesses are trying to accomplish? Aren't they even a little curious?

Apparently not. Or perhaps they think they already know.

It is a peculiar but not uncommon trait of humans to be blind to what cannot be explained by their own pre-existing theory of the universe.

In many ways, nonemployer businesses don't make economic sense. But starting them and running them is something that Americans are doing. In droves.

That, it seems to me, is an excellent reason why lawmakers should want to know more about them.