If you’re not one of those folks … suffice it to say that I was uncharacteristically silent.

Not taking the week off, just not posting much of anything anywhere because it pretty well didn’t have time to turn around twice, thanks to child health issues.

Now that all is well once again, I can return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

This tax reform proposal from Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Gregg (R-NH) is far from perfect but it is still very promising. And, in an election year with a decidedly un-sexy issue like this, hammering out this sort of bipartisan legislation is an act of courage. Kudos to both for this one; I hope it ends up having some legs.

Also this week, the return of the infamous Women’s Procurement Program and new research from Advocacy. And, as always, this week’s Policy Matters column.

For more information:

• The Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 (Information page on Senator Wyden’s web site)
• SBA Announcement: Women’s Procurement Program
• Regulations.gov
• SBA Office of Advocacy

Who would have thought that a week away from home would cause this much exhaustion?

So, health care reform is back. This week, the top story looks like it will be the President’s legislative proposal — which silently says to Congress, “Well, I gave you a chance and you screwed up … ”

We’ll see how he does with this one. I suspect he is wasting his time reaching out to Republicans but they may surprise me. Stranger things have happened, although I can’t think of any right this minute.

And the SBA Office of Advocacy reminds us that the fourth quarter of last year was an economic mixed bag when it comes to the numbers. The fourth quarter indicators seem to indicate that those elusive jobs will continue to be elusive for the foreseeable future.

For more information:

• Press Release: Perriello, Markey to Introduce Bill to Strip Anti-Trust Exemption for Health Insurance Industry
• SBA Office of Advocacy
• NYT: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

It’s pretty typical of the questions I get asked by microbusiness owners, too: why is the government so quick to rescue the big boys but not us little guys down here.

The way the feds throw resources at already-resource-rich parts of the economy while leaving the rest of us to struggle on our own is what you might call the ultimate uneven playing field.

Then again, when you stop and think about things like that passel of idiot regulatory proposals targeting independent contractors and the firms, you start wondering if maybe it’s a good thing to be ignored by the federal government.

For more information:

• Friedman Associates
• Association for Enterprise Opportunity
• Independent Contractors [Survey] from the NASE Staff Blog
• SBA Office of Advocacy

Never doubt my devotion to microbusinesses!

Of course, in my opinion, the best news of the week is the research. I’m so excited, I can hardly sit still (which makes it very difficult to type, let me tell you). For the most part, the paper merely demonstrates the places where further research is needed but that’s great.

You see, with this paper, we get to hear from microbusiness owners and they tell us that a lot of what people assume to be true about them isn’t. If further research explores just what is here that needs further clarification, description, documentation and whatnot, there’ll be an avalanche of microbusiness research where before there was almost none.

That’s really exciting!

This week, we have more on the President’s small business proposals and whether they’ll matter to micros. There’s also more on the President’s budget. And, as always, this week’s Policy Matters.

For more information:

• The White House (Official Web Site)
• Microbusiness Research Institute
• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• House Small Business Committee

So, this week, I’m doing something a little different. Last week, I interviewed business author Ainslie Waldron while she was here in the States on a book tour. Normally, I’d post that interview separately as a Podcast Special: Unconventional Thinker or something along those lines.

But this time, I decided that since I had written an article for this week’s newsletter from the interview, I’d go ahead and post it as part of the regular podcast.

So, I’d like to hear from you on this one — because it’s a pretty big leap from the 10 minute podcast that you’re used to to a 30 minute podcast that might take longer than your average busy microbusiness owner can spare.

Did you like having this expert interview added in to the regular podcast?

Do you think I should never do this again?

I have an inquiring mind and I want to know.

This week is all about different perspectives on the still limping but soon to recover economy; the mood is captured pretty accurately in the title of this week’s Policy Matters column: Half Empty, Half Full.

For more information:

• National Small Business Association
• Ainslie Waldron, mba
• Government Accountability Office

If you don’t happen to be among those who feel a personal connection to this holiday and the man it is meant to honor, permit me to share the following, written by the late Coretta Scott King and posted to The King Center web site:

We call you to commemorate this Holiday by making your personal commitment to serve humanity with the vibrant spirit of unconditional love that was his greatest strength, and which empowered all of the great victories of his leadership. And with our hearts open to this spirit of unconditional love, we can indeed achieve the Beloved Community of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.

May we who follow Martin now pledge to serve humanity, promote his teachings and carry forward his legacy into the 21st Century.

If nothing else, I invite you to reflect (as I do every year) on what courage and generosity of spirit and intelligence and justice, combined with action, can accomplish.

This week’s microbusiness news is slightly truncated; not much is going to be happening in Washington until after the State of the Union address. Not to mention the number of people who are twitching about Massachusetts right now.

So, we have an assessment of microfinance and how it has performed as a source of small business capital throughout the crisis. There’s also the White House talking about what a good job they did last year, because nobody in Washington is shy about tooting their own horns.

And of course, this week’s Policy Matters column.

For more information:

• White House Blog: Where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re headed
• MicroTest 2009 Report Summary
• Boston Globe: The end of the office … and the future of work

I don’t know how well that sort of incentive would work. Small employers would no doubt welcome some sort of payroll tax holiday or cut in same. But I also think that smart small business owners won’t hire if the dibs are not in tune and this sort of tax carrot won’t get them to create jobs unless they would have created those jobs anyway.

I’ve said this before: a lot of other things have to be going right before you’re ready to start hiring. Just offering a tax break of some kind isn’t enough, from a business point of view.

This being an election year, it will be interesting to see what the economy does, how slowly or quickly it starts chugging again and when and to what degree the Democrats start to panic.

It’ll also be interesting to see whether the Republicans will be able to campaign on health care reform repeal and be successful if everybody is still kind of preoccupied with the economy.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and for the record, I will be sending out a correction in next week’s newsletters. I mistakenly reported (in the newsletters but not in this podcast) that the Labor Department had announced the loss of 68,000 jobs in December. The correct figure is 85,000 jobs lost last month. I apologize for the error.

For more information:

• Statement: President Obama Announces Proposal to Accelerate Job Growth
• National Federation of Independent Business
• The Conference Board
• Release: NASE Opposes Senate Health Reform Bill

After the story I did and the podcast snippet I recorded about the still-pending nomination for the Chief Counsel of the SBA Office of Advocacy (along with my confession about my mental aberrations having to do with former NFL tight-end Kellen Winslow), I was honored and tickled pink to field a phone call from Dr. Winslow Sargeant himself.

I just wanted to mention it here because I am very well aware of the fact that he really didn’t have to do that. It gives me a good impression of him.

Now … back to this week’s news.

Best of show for the week is the new nonemployer research, without a doubt. These bits of research on nonemployers might illustrate stuff that many of us think we already know but, as I’ve written before, without the research, we were never able to prove it before.

Now we can, which matters. And now that the easy questions are being answered and some of those in the research world are beginning to notice and care about how little we really know about nonemployers, the fun part (where we start seeing research that illustrates stuff that we didn’t know) will soon start.

Personally, I think that’s a great way to close out a year.

We also have Congressional dancing for you, with the appropriations tango and the economic stimulus cha-cha. Everybody’s dance cards seem to be full but where does that leave us microbusinesses?

For more information:

• Summary: Jobs for Main Street Act of 2010 (PDF)
• Landrieu Praises Passage of Omnibus Appropriations Act …
• SBA Office of Advocacy

I decided to take a break from complaining about politicians for this final podcast of the year, and turn instead to the much more pleasant task of talking about ways and means to spot opportunity that are accessible to the typical microbusiness owner.

And, really, what could be more accessible than watching and listening to our customers. If we have any sense at all, we’re doing that anyway, aren’t we?

I’m talking about turning our hands to trend-watching, a topic about which I had a fun and informative conversation with my good friend, Anita Campbell.

Anita offers us tips on

• how do you spot trends and what can you do about them?
• how early is “too early” to take advantage of new trends?
• what’s the window of opportunity between “fad” and “trend” and “mainstream”?
• … and much, much more!

Give a listen. What with all the planning that is going on among small business owners along about now (or should be), it’s a timely topic.

The regular edition of the Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast will be back next week, on January 4, 2009.

For more information:

• Small Business Trends
• BizSugar.com

However, when I take these little year-end breaks, I generally try not to leave you completely. One of the things I try to make arrangements for is this podcast.

This is the time of year for podcast specials.

This first special is a commentary from yours truly, a little ditty that was originally published over at The Journal Blog on December 11, 2009. Regular Journal Blog readers seemed quite enchanted by the Microbusiness Manifesto. I hope you are, too.

Merry Christmas!