SmallBusinessNewz

We might, just maybe, be climbing out of a figurative pit of pessimism, folks.  The NFIB's newest report indicates that the Index of Small Business Optimism rose in September, giving us a good two-month streak of improvements.

The bad news buried within this nugget is that events in the middle and tail parts of September - namely, the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the resulting fallout - turned things south again.  So the index could have gone higher, and early October results might be ugly.

Still, since the Dow may be repairing itself, we'll try to focus on the first half of the September coverage.  About nine percent of small business owners planned to increase employment at that time.  A full 22 percent intended to increase capital outlays, and 20 percent thought the economy would improve.

Higher sales were expected by roughly six percent of owners, and 13 percent viewed the moment as a good time to expand.  Not bad, all in all.  The feedback's technically at recession levels, but it's much better than before.

Now seems like a good time to bring up the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies.  We'll keep our fingers crossed that, since the NFIB's news is now sort of good, the idea will finally take hold.