BUSINESS: IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR--THE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED:

Roadmap to Profitable Growth: @ The Intersection started through the publishing process yesterday. The countdown is at 98 days and counting. This book will be one that you will want to read. (It's short, easy reading too!) More than that, you will want to buy it as a Christmas/Holiday gift for every person you know who works in a private sector (for-profit) business. Few things are more essential to business survival and prosperity than profitable growth. Where and how to find it can be like a treasure map for them and their companies. Stay tuned for more in coming editions.

This book is my contribution to helping America regain its economic prosperity. Please help me with that mission.

BUSINESS: THE ECONOMY IS STILL SUFFERING--THAT IS NOT SUCH BIG NEWS, BUT READ ON...

---CONSUMER SPENDING:There was much made of the 0.8% growth in consumer spending in July. I was NOT IMPRESSED, because the same statistic in June was down 0.7% and in May was down 0.1%. This means that the 0.8% growth so widely touted this past week merely regained the ground lost in the prior two months.

---EMPLOYMENT: With the USA stuck at a reported 8.3% (actually the U-6 total unemployed and underemployed is at 15%…see all the data at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm AND reports yesterday said that unemployment went up in 44 states… Under Barack Obama, "Hope and Change" is clearly "Hopeless and Change for the Worse."

---GENERAL BUSINESS: Reports from such bellwethers as FedEx indicated a slowing in shipments (e.g., business activity). Employers are paralyzed into inaction by the combination of the election, tax-mageddon coming in Jan. 2013 and the similar regulatory cliff described by our OH Senator Rob Portman in this WSJ Op Ed piece:

Download Rob Portman: The Regulatory Cliff Is Nearly as Steep as the Fiscal One - WSJ.com

BUSINESS: AND POLITICS ARE INSEPARABLE, SINCE EVERYTHING BUSINESS HOPES AND WANTS TO DO IS SOMEHOW AFFECTED BY GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

Thus, the segue from the business topics to the political topics. Someone asked why there was so much attention to Medicare when the Economy should be the topic of discussion. The facts are that Medicare is the largest item in the US Budget, and it, combined with Medicaid, Obamacare, and Welfare (related) are the primary elements of the US Budget deficit, and the problems overhanging the economy.

REMEMBER LAST WEEK'S COMMENTS ABOUT THE FUD SYNDROME AFFLICTING AMERICANS? I AM PLEASED THAT SUCH A RESPECTED COLUMNIST AS GEOFF COLVIN CHOSE TO DESCRIBE THE SAME ISSUE, THE SAME WAY:

Business's real problem: Uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty

August 8, 2012: 5:00 AM ET It's hard for corporate chiefs to plan for the future when they're waiting for a closetful of shoes to drop.

By Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large

FORTUNE --

When CEOs tell me that their No. 1 concern is uncertainty, as a great many do, my first reaction is skepticism. Please. Life is uncertain. Is this moment really different?

Actually it is: Economic uncertainty, especially policy uncertainty, is greater than it has been in many years. And if you're wondering why the U.S. economy is barely moving or why millions of workers can't find jobs, extraordinary uncertainty is a major part -- maybe the largest part -- of the answer.

High uncertainty creates a loop of paralysis, and that's what we're in right now. Policymakers have no idea what's going to happen, so they sit on their hands, as the Federal Reserve did recently. "Nearly all participants" in the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting said that the economic outlook was more uncertain than it had been over the past 20 years, according to the minutes; the committee took no action, and the Dow dropped. The minutes also reported that business leaders were telling committee members that "heightened uncertainty" had led them "to put potential investment projects on hold until the uncertainty is resolved." And what were those business leaders uncertain about? Government policy. An index of policy uncertainty created by economists at Stanford and the University of Chicago backs their view, showing that policy uncertainty has been much higher in recent months than during the previous 25 years.

More: Why this month's good jobs news won't last

The business leaders were most uncertain about tax and regulatory issues. Those things are always changeable, but the potential swings could make you dizzy. After the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in June, Mitt Romney and Republican congressional leaders promised to repeal it if they win the election in November. So the biggest-ever regulation of the largest sector of the world's largest economy, affecting every employer and individual in the country, either will continue as the law of the land or will disappear.

Who can even think about planning in those circumstances? It's similar with the fiscal cliff at year-end: the killer combination of mandatory cuts in federal spending and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Even assuming that Congress averts a plunge over the edge, no one knows how it will happen. A short-term fix, by far the likeliest outcome, will do nothing to get the economy moving because it leaves businesspeople wondering what comes next. Investment and hiring decisions are not short-term. Research by Abdiweli M. Ali of Harvard concluded, "Lack of confidence and skepticism about the stability of economic policies force investors to postpone capital investment ... They cannot undo decisions about fixed capital every time the government reverses its economic policy."

This isn't just economic theory. Uncertainty is creating real suffering. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that uncertainty about the fiscal cliff alone could reduce U.S. economic growth by 0.5% in the second half. In an economy growing at less than 2%, that's a lot, representing billions of dollars that won't be available to hire people.

More: The dollar is now corporate America's worst enemy

Who's to blame? A hyperpolarized Congress is an uncertainty-generating machine. Obamacare was enacted without a single Republican vote in either chamber; when the House voted recently to repeal the law, only five Democrats voted with 239 Republicans. The message to businesspeople: Don't count on anything that passes without substantial bipartisan support. And little of significance seems to be enacted that way anymore.

Another thing CEOs often tell me is that the precise content of policy may be less important than its predictability. If they know the rules, they'll play to win. It's when they don't know the rules, like now, that they get stuck. Give the election's winners, whoever they are, until March to show that they're leaders rather than kids throwing tantrums. Until then -- and who knows, maybe beyond -- we're going nowhere fast.

This story is from the August 13, 2012 issue of Fortune.

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POLITICS: IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR WHAT MITT ROMNEY SAID THIS PAST WEEK:

Here is part of the text of his remarks:

..."Over the last four years, this President has pushed Republicans and Democrats as far apart as they can go. And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces.

If an American president wins that way, we all lose. But he won't win that way. America is one Nation under God. American history has been a story of the many becoming one -- uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.

Everywhere I go in America there are monuments that list those who have given their lives. There is no mention of their race, their party affiliation or what they did for a living. They lived and died under a single flag fighting for a single purpose. They pledged allegiance to the United States of America.

So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America."…

That is how our next president should talk to this current "pretender" who is occupying the White House…

WHEN WILL AMERICANS WAKE UP AND THROW OBAMA OUT OF THE JOB HE IS FAILING SO MISERABLY AT DOING?

POLITICS: READERS KNOW I'M A BIG FAN OF PEGGY NOONAN (Former Reagan speechwriter and staff member)

I sure hope the Romney campaign people are reading her columns too. This one, from Sat.'s WSJ site is full of great ideas that they should adopt and use.

Download Noonan- It's the Circumstances, Stupid - WSJ.com

ONE MORE PIECE ON PAUL RYAN, ABOUT WHOM MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ALREADY IS POSTED BELOW:

Dennis Prager's bio from Wikipedia says: Dennis Prager (born August 2, 1948) is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, and public speaker. He is noted for his conservative political and social views emanating from conservative Judeo-Christian values.^[1] He holds that there is an "American Trinity" of essential principles, which he lists as E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty.

NOT A BAD SET OF PRINCIPLES...

BEST, JOHN

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Religious, Pro-Market Ryan Is Dems' Worst Nightmare

By DENNIS PRAGER
Posted 07:02 PM ET

The Republican vice-presidential candidate, Congressman Paul Ryan, is the Democrats' political version of the Anti-Christ.

He believes in self-reliance; the left believes in reliance on the state. His moral values are shaped by religion (Catholicism); the left is frightened by religious Christian politicians (and athletes, and members of the armed forces, and talk-show hosts, and, for that matter, clergy).

He believes in individualism; the left believes in collectivism. He believes in small government and powerful citizens; the left believes in large government and dependent citizens.

Nevertheless, the Democratic Party claims to be overjoyed at his selection as the GOP vice-presidential nominee.

The Democrats' glee — even if exaggerated — emanates from their belief that Americans will reject Ryan's economic and social plans to reduce the American debt, unleash private economic growth (the only type there is), and reform unsustainable government programs such as Medicare.

Democrats believe that if Americans perceive that their entitlements may be affected — even if only beginning a decade from now, and even if the American debt is thereby cut by one third, and even if they, as well as the country, will ultimately benefit — so many Americans have become so used to government benefits, the Republicans stand little chance of winning the upcoming elections.

In other words, and tragically, the left and Democrats are relying on the decline of the American character that left-wing policies have produced (not only here but everywhere else).

The Democrats are hoping that older Americans are (irrationally) frightened by Medicare reform even though these reforms will not affect them, and that younger Americans will likewise reject these reforms because they are counting on receiving Medicare as it now exists.

Left-wing social policies are predicated on giving more and more Americans more and more benefits and demanding less and less from them.

The left's party — the Democrats — seeks to have the state pay for Americans' health care, give record numbers of Americans food stamps (now in a form similar to ATM and credit cards so there's no stigma involved), provide their children with school meals and provide women with child care and contraceptives, while enabling more and more Americans to pay no federal taxes to pay for any of these benefits.

The negative impact these policies have had on the character of Americans is indisputable. Every parent — and probably most adults who are not parents — knows what giving things they have not earned and demanding nothing from them in return produces: spoiled children.

Left-wing, Democratic Party policies have negatively impacted the American character in another way.

Whenever possible, the left and the Democrats have de-stigmatized irresponsible behavior.

One example is women who give birth to and raise children without fathers in their children's lives.

This past Sunday's New York Times opinion section featured another attack on those who stigmatize out-of-wedlock birth and single motherhood.

Another example is the cultural left's glorification of graffiti — once regarded as vandalism of public and private property — as "street art."

A third example is how difficult Democrats and the left-wing education establishment have made it for teachers and principals to discipline disruptive and foul-mouthed students.

The Department of Education has just declared education the "civil rights issue of our generation" because black students are disproportionately suspended and otherwise punished at school. The effect? Black young people who abuse their teachers and schools feel empowered to continue their anti-social behavior.

At the same time, the left works to weaken the single most effective device for character building in American history: Judeo-Christian religions. Increasingly, the American motto "In God We Trust" has been replaced by "In Government We Trust" and "In Experts We Trust."

Since the Democrats could not win any national election with the votes of liberals alone — according to Gallup, self-described liberals constitute just 21% of the electorate — the great question of the 2012 American presidential election is this: Have the left and Democratic Party sufficiently weakened the character of enough Americans to enable the demonization of Paul Ryan to lead Barack Obama to victory?

I don't believe so. But given the enormity of the national debt incurred by this administration, its spectacular failure to improve the nation's economy and its commitment to weakening American defense, if there were a better explanation for a Democratic victory, I would welcome it.

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Author of the Award Winner: THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS, and the exciting novel: THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY. Come see my blog posts on Forbes.com

John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, http://www.mariotti.net, http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/