We'll be off tomorrow, and probably posting lightly through at least the middle of next week. Happy Fourth, everyone!

Those lousy jobs numbers. You probably saw on your front page that June witnessed the unemployment rate rise to 9.5%--the highest point in 26 years. Here's the news viewed through a small-business lens. [The Entrepreneurial Mind]

Small business tax breaks. A video runs down several that the federal stimulus law introduced. [SMSmallBiz]

Credit or charge? Which type of card should you get for your business? [OPEN Forum]

Cutting when they've already cut. A dispatch from the small-business frontlines: how do you keep slashing costs after several months of same? [Fortune Small Business]

"The Gray Entrepreneurs". A fascinating juxtaposition of a study and an Economist article reveals an interesting trend: likely increased entrepreneurship among the Baby Boomers. [NYT Idea of the Day]

What are your Odds of Success? An online questionnaire calculates it for you. [Entrepreneur Daily Dose]

We examined this question earlier this week: comparing a pessimistic post by Scott Shane of You're The Boss and a more optimistic one by John Tozzi of The New Entrepreneur, we concluded that while traditional small business owners may be genuinely pessimistic, and not without legitimate reasons, the dynamics of the recession are actually likely to encourage the rise of non-employee--that is, single-person--businesses.

Well, we have another post in us on The State of Entrepreneurship, and it once again results from the dialectic between a pessimistic Scott Shane and a less-pessimistic John Tozzi.

Shane writes: "Most Americans would like to believe that this country is getting more entrepreneurial over time. While I wish this were true, the data don’t agree. Policy makers need to take a look at these data and acknowledge the pattern." And Shane has the charts to prove it. We don't want to rip them off; but go to his post and see for yourself. Disheartening stuff.

What's to blame? Shane fingers Wal-Mart and the like: "Large, efficient companies are able to out-compete small start-ups, replacing the independent businesses in many markets. Multiply across the entire economy the effect of a Wal-Mart replacing the independent restaurant, grocery store, clothing store, florist, etc., in a town, and you can see how we end up with a downward trend in entrepreneurship over time." Indeed, Shane has literally written the book on this phenomenon. It's a compelling explanation.

But Tozzi takes a different view.

Without denying the Wal-Mart effect, Tozzi points to the "emergence of niche markets where many small players compete, without the dominance of a Wal-Mart-like giant, or even mass markets where niche players are gaining a foothold." This is straight out of Chris Anderson's famed book The Long Tail, in which Anderson--the editor of Wired--predicts an infinitely fractured marketplace increasingly shifting away from a select few blockbuster goods and towards many, many, many more smaller-selling niche goods.

How does Tozzi rebut Shane's convincing graphs? He notes that they all start twenty years ago, and, arguing that "there could be an inflection point around the beginning of this decade," he predicts that the data we get in the coming years could show that things turned around for entrepreneurship in America thanks to the long tail/increased prevalence of niche markets. Again, compelling.

We took Tozzi's side last time; this time, we're a little more bearish. Tozzi's point certainly carries during boom times, especially the middle of this past decade: increased consumer spending really did prove a boon both the Wal-Marts and the tiny businesses of the world, which benefited from increased profitability of niche markets. The rising tide truly did lift both the big and little boats. However, the past two years (and especially the past year) have not been so kind to consumer spending, and while that ultimately hurts everyone, it's going to hurt the little guys, operating in their little niche-markets, far, far more than it is going to hurt the Wal-Marts (indeed, Wal-Mart is still managing to turn profits).

So on the one hand, we think that Shane's numbers might be a little misleading (although we don't doubt their integrity), and that his "Wal-Mart effect" explanation might be a little oversimplified (though we don't doubt its ultimate validity). However, recessions have the effect of simplification, and we'd suspect that entrepreneurship indeed is taking a disproportionate hit as of late.

Generally, what we talk about when we talk about health care is reforming it so as to get small businesses out of the business of providing it as well as saving them billions of dollars. However, BizBox doesn't run the world (not yet, anyway), and so if you decide to quit your job--or if that decision is made for you--and then start your own business, you're going to need either to purchase health insurance on your own or go without. In the spirit of not being afraid to be service-y, let's take a look at a recent Wall Street Journal article on how to buy health insurance.

In essence, the article recommends that you do your own homework--and a lot of it. It recommends Georgetown University's healthinsuranceinfo.net, the National Health Law Program's healthcarecoach.com, and the Kaiser Family Foundation's site. And even with all of those resources, it still may also be worth consulting an independent agent, or several (make sure they have a license!), particularly if it's your first time buying on your own.

Beyond that, caveat emptor! Buy insurance, not just a discount card. Look beyond premiums: make sure you have a catastrophe insurance, that your out-of-pocket costs are capped, that your percentage of doctors' visits is reasonable.

And don't forget to see if you're eligible for federal unemployment-related health benefits! Our very own Jerry Kalish expounded on how the federal stimulus law expanded that coverage--check it out.

The New York Times runs not one but two stories highlighting ways in which big and small businesses can create a symbiotic, mutually beneficial dynamic, rather than one in which they are constantly at odds.

One article describes how the owner of KIND Snacks strove to, and inally succeeded in, getting Starbucks to sell his fruit and nut bars (which are bound together by honey, rather than an artificial paste, and are therefore healthier and more organic). "Big product makers have a clear advantage" in getting retailers to sell their goods, the article reports, "because they can usually offer multiple product lines at lower prices and already have inventory management systems in place. Smaller companies must compete on price with major brands, but also be unusual enough to make them worth the retailer’s investment."

The second article describes programs that several large corporations--the piece mentions I.B.M., Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble, and Home Depot--offer that involves their executives mentoring small businesses that are involved in the larger company's supply chain. Beyond such programs, there exists among some of the world's biggest businesses a broader commitment to including all sorts of companies in their supply chains: witness the Billion Dollar Roundtable, a group of 16 huge corporations (IBM, Boeing, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and, yes, Wal-Mart) that do at least $1 billion's worth of business per year with women- or minority-owned firms.

What we like so much about the articles, and the broader dynamic they describe, is that the big companies' attitude toward the smaller ones is decidedly not charitable. Starbucks expects those KIND bars to sell well, and if they don't, they're probably gone. The companies that offer mentoring programs want to ensure that the companies on the other end of their business transactions are well-run and reliable out of self-interest.

There is, additionally, an interesting branding dynamic at work here, we'd argue. In offering those KIND bars, Starbucks is doing more than trying to turn a per-unit buck--indeed, given that the bar is a finished product purchased wholesale from another company, there is no way Starbucks is making that much of a profit selling these bars at only $1.95 apiece. Rather, they are aligning their brand with a small business, and what's more with one that promotes an active, healthy lifestyle--something that is very in right now, and that the famed purveyor of $5 cappucinos could use a bit more of an association with. One of the companies that an I.B.M. executive mentors is owned by a gay man, and I.B.M. touts its participation in the I.B.M. program as a part of the multinational's outreach to LGBT-owned businesses.

It's not cynical; it's smart business. And it shows that the big corporations need the little guys, too.

In light of the recent efforts to come up with a reformed regulatory infrastructure for the financial industry, I feel the need to reiterate my comments on our financial industry's regulators, which I have referred to as Our Nation's Ball-less Wonders (what can I say, I'm colorful!). I especially want to look at how they have dealt with and will now deal with community banks.

The current debate has focused on whether the Federal Reserve should become a sort of mega-regulator. But the real question, I think, is whether in the past the Fed has performed its job to protect this country and our economy by actually enforcing the regulations that existed. I think the facts show that the answer is no.

First, a primer. In the world of banking there are five regulating authorities: the FDIC regulates state-chartered banks because it insures them; the Comptoller of the Currency regulates national banks; the Fed regulates banks that become members of the Federal Reserve System; the Office of Thrift Supervision regulates thrifts; and the National Credit Union Administration regulates--guess!!--credit unions. When Congress passes a law, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, it orders each agency to adopt regulations to implement that law. When the law affects more than one jurisdiction, the relevant governing agencies will come together and create a "uniform regulation" that will be applied throughout the industry.

Additionally, while there is a need for all banks to comply with, say, the Safety and Soundness in Lending and the Fair Credit Reporting Acts, there is quite a distinction among investment banks, national banks, regional banks, and community banks, and their different regulators reflect this.

One mega-regulator could potentially lose sight of the contribution to our country fostered by a healthy competition within the industry, including from the community banks. I fear a mega-regulator will ultimately move us closer to having fewer banks to chose from, with our valued community banks being the loser in this game.

My fear is that transferring most regulatory authority to one agency will dilute the current system of checks and balances, and will reduce the possibility that some agency, any agency, will cry foul and take action when the financial companies fail to adhere to the laws of this country. Perhaps the plan might work, if, in addition to the consolidation, the people were also represented by an ombudsman to act as watchdog when the Fed fails to do its job, as it surely will.

To be fair, when we evaluate the benefits of a mega-regulator, I would say that any consolidation that reduces expenses and thereby saves taxpayer dollars, is a good plan.

Still, the Fed has failed us miserably in the past, and I have no reason to believe that they will perform any better in the future.

Finally, I must once again encourage the individual people of this country to meet with their Congressional leaders and to write to their journalists to express their opposition of this new plan. This country affords us freedoms, and as a people, we are failing miserably in exercising our rights to play a vital role in our own destiny.

Anonymous Banker is a 35-year veteran of the banking industry who has spent much time as small-business banker and credit underwriter. He blogs at anonymousbanker.com.

When we write about health care, we have tended to focus less on the particulars of a potential plan and more on, say, the necessity of genuine reform to save small businesses billions of dollars, or on the tricky politics surrounding an employer mandate. We have not taken a position on, for example, the public option--the notion of a government-run insurer that can assume the burden of the currenty uninsured as well as use its buying power to negotiate rates, promote certain treatments, and through competition lower prices throughout the health insurance industry.

Now, though, Jonathan Weber, the small-business columnist at our sister site The Big Money, has made what might be termed the small-business case for the public option. It's not, in other words, based on the more ideological pros and cons, but on the much simpler proposition that ordinary small businesses should not have also to be in the health-insurance business.

"There is little economic logic in forcing companies to provide health insurance," Weber argues. "It distracts them from their principal mission, it gives large companies a big advantage over small companies (big companies can leverage economies of scale to reduce their per-employee costs), and it introduces friction in the job market by creating an external incentive not to change jobs." (Indeed, we've written about the numerous ways in which the current system disadvantages small businesses here.)

Weber also notes that many small-business groups--in particular, the powerful National Federation of Independent Business--appear to be opposed to a public option for ideological reasons rather than small business-specific ones. We've taken the NFIB to task for prizing conservative ideology over common sense in the card check, fair-pay, and estate tax debates already; if we were you, we'd expect to see a post on health care shortly.

Meanwhile, the big news on the health-care front today is that none other than Wal-mart has come out in favor of a broad-based employer mandate--a general requirement (potentially exempting small businesses) that employers provide health benefits to their workers. Wal-mart's being canny, to be sure--this move makes it look reasonable, and may also make a public plan less likely--but it's worth noting that its letter is co-signed by the heads of the Service Employees International Union and of the liberal Center for American Progress--so if it's being canny, it's also being serious. We're not sure exactly what the implications of this move are for small businesses. Suffice to say, though, that the burden that would fall on Wal-mart's being required to insure all of its employees is far less onerous than the one that would fall on the average, truly small business.

We wanted to announce a forthcoming installment in our BizBooks author discussion series. But we're doing it a little bit differently this time. On July 14th (Bastille Day!), we will have a conversation with Alaina Love, lead author of The Purpose-Linked Organization, and then we will print it on the blog. In the meantime, if you have any questions you would like to ask Ms. Love, please do email them to us.

And who, you might ask, is Ms. Love? Well. Love, SPHR, is the President and co-founder of Purpose Linked Consulting, a leadership and organizational development consulting firm located in the US and Thailand.

And what is The Purpose-Linked Organization?

The book examines the rising tension in the relationship between employees and corporations. It posits that workers today have a burning desire to identify their purpose and passions, and find an outlet for them in the work environment; at the same time, their employers are feverishly searching for new ways to achieve outstanding results through their people. What far too few organizational leaders realize is that purpose combined with passion need not lead to discord--it could, according to Love, be the new competitive edge.

Based on the authors' proprietary research and in-depth interviews with a diverse group of high-powered executives, The Purpose-Linked Organization offers easily implementable ways to channel the power of each individual’s passions in a positive, purposeful direction. It teaches you how to link skills, values, and passions to performance—and how doing so will bring results. Just as importantly, it enables you to confidently assess your own purpose and passions so that your own organizational role will be as engaging, fulfilling, and productive as possible.

Love's resume is quite impressive, so we're really excited about this. She has consulted to large, multinational Fortune 500 firms as well as small, independent companies and hospitals for over 25 years. Before embarking on her current career as a human-resources expert, Alaina was a research scientist for Merck in the field of immunology (!), where she worked to develop products for the treatment of diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus.

So send your questions in! And get ready for the discussion on July 14th.

Our sister site Slate runs a characteristically witty and insightful take on peer-to-peer lending Websites--in which wannabe borrowers tell their stories and ask to borrow money from, well, pretty much anyone who happens upon their request and wants to fulfill it. The article's conclusion? P2P lending's supposed pluses are real, as are its supposed minuses.

The pluses over traditional lending institutions, i.e. banks, include the lack of "an extra layer of potentially corrupting bureaucracy". More importantly, the author notes, "Personal lenders may also better pick up on 'soft' characteristics of borrowers—a compelling story or convincing picture—that may be a true indication of likely repayment. Loan officers burdened by institutional rules on borrower collateral or credit history may not have the discretion to act on such information." The results of this increased reliance on "soft," or holistic, information speak for themselves: lenders (the author deals mainly with the site Prosper) have proven "quite adept at assessing the creditworthiness of prospective borrowers," the author reports, with their ability to predict credit score being far "more accurate than could be explained by accounting for the tangible financial data available."

On the other hand, this increased reliance on "soft" information can also lead to irrational lending decisions. A good, memorable example: a "massive beauty premium," under which there is a tendency to give good-looking people--prospective borrowers frequently post pictures--cheaper loans than they would otherwise deserve (in fact, interestingly enough, statistics apparently show that good-looking people are actually more likely to default!). Less amusingly, the practices of some P2P lenders have indicated a degree of racial discrimination.

Additionally, the author notes that using a P2P Website isn't exactly cutting out the middleman: there is, after all, the Website itself. The Website, of course, isn't remotely as looming a middleman as an actual bank doing the lending, however. On the other hand, those banks are insured by the federal government; as of now, P2P Websites are not.

In sum, P2P lending's great strength is its ability to exploit the "soft" financial information in order to make smarter loans, and to get credit to borrowers who may not look great on paper but who, at the end of the day, are going to pay back their debt: "This 'soft' information is particularly important for higher-risk borrowers with little financial history to guide lenders' decisions."

Higher-risk borrowers with little financial history? Sounds to us like the typical fledgling small business owner. It seems, then, like P2P definitely is a good option.

A final note we'd make. Wouldn't it be great if there were some lending mechanism that combined banks' expertise and professionalism with P2P lending's ability to take a more holistic, extensive look at prospective borrowers? Oh, right. They're called community banks.

Forget about that so-called “7-Year Rule” for maintaining your business records. That’s what Attorney Christine Branstad tell us in a recent post in the IowaBiz Business Record Blog.

It may be a tax guideline, she says, but it’s a business and legal myth. She goes on to explain why and offers the following advice: "work with your attorney to design a record retention plan. Be sure the plan covers paper records and electronic data. Once you have a record retention (and destruction) plan, integrate that plan into your business processes."

But there’s an additional retirement plan component to all of this, particularly as the July 31 deadline for filing a Form 5500 for most retirement plans approaches. The myth here is that retirement plan records only have to be retained for a period of at least six years after the date of the filing of an ERISA-related return or report, and that the materials should be preserved in a manner and format (electronic or otherwise) that permits ready retrieval. All records that support the plan’s annual reporting and disclosure should be retained, this myth goes.

Now here’s the practical side of it. While it is fairly common for a plan sponsor to contract with outside service providers, such as our firm, who provide certain reports and prepare the 5500 filing, the Plan Administrator remains ultimately responsible for retaining adequate records that support these reports and filings. In addition, the Department of Labor requires employers to maintain records sufficient to determine the amount of benefits accrued by each employee participant.

Instead of relying on the “6-Year Rule", best practices would be to maintain certain records for the life of the plan. The thicker the paper trail, the easier it will be for the plan to respond to an inquiry from a governmental agency or a request for information from a plan participant.

Both the Internal Revenue Service and the Labor Department, the federal agencies that have oversight of retirement plan tax aspects and reporting requirements respectively, can and have requested information for periods “back in the day”.

It’s far easier to have the records in the first place than to have to recreate them for the IRS or DOL.

Jerry Kalish is founder and President of National Benefit Services, Inc., a Chicago-based employee benefit consulting and administrative firm that serves private-held companies, publicly traded companies, and public sector employers. He blogs at The Retirement Plan Blog and can be reached at jerry@nationalbenefit.com.

You're The Boss points to the National Federation of Independent Business's most recent monthly numbers on the percentage of entrepreneurs who believe that the next three months are a "Good Time to Expand". Recently, the figure has risen. However, the post's author concludes: "the percentages over the last few months are still in very low territory compared to where they have been historically. Clearly the recession is taking its toll on the outlook of small-business owners."

But is this historically low outlook really the best indicator of the prospects for entrepreneurial growth? Not necessarily, John Tozzi of The New Entrepreneur might say; and were he to say it, we would agree with him. Tozzi highlights an intriguing statistic produced by none other than the U.S. Census Bureau: that between 2006 and 2007, the U.S. added over one million additional non-employee (which is to say, single-person) businesses. These businesses actually comprise a not-insignificant space in the economic landscape: by 2007, there were 21.7 million of them--19.1 million sole proprietorships, 1.4 million corporations, and 1.2 million partnerships. As you'd expect, the vast majority of these businesses are unincorporated individuals. Their total 2007 revenue totaled nearly a trillion dollars, which, Tozzi notes, is equal to nearly 7% of GDP.

Of course, these are relatively old numbers. But Tozzi makes a compelling point: "I think the long-term trend here is clear: More people working for themselves instead of (or in addition to) being employees. My gut sense is the recession is creating even more entrepreneurs as laid off workers go into business for themselves." We heartily agree. When the job market is bad, one logical step is to remove yourself from it, and pretty the much only way to do that (while still trying to secure an income, obviously) is to start your own business. Just one more component to the Great Rearranging. We'd bet anything that, two years from now, when the Census Bureau releases its 2009 non-employer business data, it will reveal even bigger jumps.