The U.S. economy and the stock market are not the same thing.

The stock market is currently sitting near all-time highs. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy remains anemic with the unemployment rate painfully high.

Generally speaking, the stock market represents large corporations who can borrow cheaply from the bond markets and take advantage of low overseas tax rates.

Yet small business can do neither of those things. They are also America's most important job creators.

The lead economists of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which produces the widely-followed small business optimism report, recently gave a presentation at the Richmond Fed's Credit Market Symposium titled "One Country, Two Economies."

In it, they lay out the state of small business, which is much weaker than what is being seen in the stock market.