This is a

This is CBS I on the World with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

Road Trip, Jim Mcte,

former Washington editor of Barron's, now a novelist on a road trip from Lancaster

County, the best county in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, to Valparaiso, Indiana, a road trip and observing America after Labor Day during the

slowdown, we're told, of jobs.

The Wall Street Journal puts it this way in a metaphor.

Hiring softened this summer, teeing up fed rate cuts.

Friday's job report shows the journals doesn't clearly resolve how much Fed might cut interest

rates at next meeting. Unemployment rate edges down to 4.2 percent. Jim, the Fed

doesn't know what it's going to do. Yes it it does. It's going to make a cut, which means

reducing the cost of money. You've been on a road trip in an America that's living with the highest

cost of money in decades prior to a presidential contest. Does America look prosperous?

Does it look puzzled? It's after Labor Day, the kids are back in school. Good evening to you,

Jim. I'm good evening, John. I think the

economy looks good, but it's softer than last year. So I talked to people all over the country.

I started out talking to people in Lancaster.

I found a fellow who is a remote worker for a tech company and he told me that Lancaster City has a lot of

remote workers because the cost of living is so low. He told me the economy is great

but I saw a woman in a garage telling the garage owner that the reason she

was there getting her oil changed today instead of being at work is that the company

...