The Obama Administration is getting a bit frustrated with the slow implementation of its financial markets rescue plan.

That's because they want credit markets to loosen up so that we can all dash out and start spending more than we earn again. That way, the economy will start growing again.

We want economic growth so that we can enjoy ever rising standards of living, right?

You know. The usual.

But what happens if people look over the last ten years or so and decide they don't want to go back down that path?

What happens if Americans decide they don't need all that stuff anymore, that they're rather live within their means, maybe even save a bit?

What happens if the American people decide they don't want to do what the government wants them to do "in order to spur economic growth"?

This is what I call the microbusiness question.

At a certain point, the economy will stop contracting but, as many economists have predicted, renewed growth will be tepid. That tepid growth will upset policy makers and certain upper income types but it is possible that, even without amazing job growth, most of the rest of the country won't mind that tepid growth so much.

Why? Because many of them will already be occupied with self-employment, that new 21stcentury job growth that the federal government does not yet measure as such.

And because the standards of measure have changed.

As Paul Bregman so elegantly puts it, "Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth."

At some point, somebody should probably mention that to the White House — if for no other reason than that it would help us if they know what we're doing.