It's difficult for me to imagine any circumstances under which I would have nothing to say. I expect it's probably difficult for you to imagine, too.

But (believe it or not) I hesitate to tell you what I'm thinking.

Everybody in Washington (and everywhere else, for that matter) is worried about the economy and they are specifically worried about "the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression."

They say they are concerned with how we are faring and they fret about vast numbers of small businesses being forced to close their doors.

But, when they start talking about what they are going to do to help small businesses get through this recession, the only thing that seems to occur to them is to think of sixty-seven different ways that small businesses can take out a loan.

In fact, from the microbusiness point of view, loans seem to be the government's answer to everything. If the economy is great, take out a loan! If the economy sucks, take out a loan!

If a tornado drops your house on the Wicked Witch of the East, take out a loan!

It is no wonder I've been told on more than one occasion that the federal government does a brisk business in banking.

That is another disconnect between policy makers who say they want to help small businesses, and the majority of small businesses that happen to be microbusinesses. Or maybe it's another way that microbusinesses are just different.

One of the reasons why it looks to microbusiness owners as if the government is helping everybody but us right now (and spending billions to do it) is because most of us prefer not to take out a loan unless we know how we are going to pay it back — always assuming we could get a loan to begin with, of course.

That's why our financing needs tend to be so small. Microbusiness owners have no interest in over-leveraging anything. Recent events suggest there's something to be said for that.