I suppose, by rights, I ought to be looking for silver linings and glasses that are half-full instead of half-empty and things of that nature. After all, Thanksgiving is this week, isn't it?

Surely, I hear you say, you have something to be thankful for!

Well, yes, I have any number of things to be thankful for. Mostly, they're personal. Very few of those things for which I am inclined to give thanks originate in Washington, D.C.

But, in the spirit of the season, I'll take a brief break from grousing to ponder. And, specifically, I want to ponder those business employment data.

It is interesting that, in the context of job loss and job creation, microbusiness employers had almost the exact same impact on the economy as the nation's largest businesses. The only real difference, from a labor market point of view, is that it took a lot more microbusinesses than large businesses to produce the same effect.

It's even more interesting if you look at it within the context of the rest of the numbers.

It's easy to complain about the lack of apparent interest in small businesses during this economic crisis. But the numbers provide one explanation of that curious silence.

When you get past the microbusiness employers and look at the rest of the small business firm size classes, their job creation and job loss numbers look fairly stable, either producing net job gains or breaking-even.

From the point of view of the folks in Washington, it probably looks like small businesses don't really need any help.

Of course, things are likely to look very different by the time the third quarter 2008 data is released, which is expected to happen sometimes around May of next year. At that point, if not before, somebody is going to remember small businesses in the context of economic stimulus.

In fairness, some lawmakers never forgot them. But it's hard to make your voice heard when the giants are teetering over Tokyo, threatening to smash whole neighborhoods if they fall.

And, in any event, none of this is likely to include those microbusinesses. They are just beetling along, doing what they always do. They don't need help. They have superpowers.

For example ... they are invisible.