This is John Batchelor. Jim McTag, my colleague in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the best county in the Keystone State, has a Christmas year-end conversation with Santa.

Santa working a shopping mall with some long experience moving around Pennsylvania and other parts as Santa.

Jim says he's a very good-looking Santa.

There was a moment there I thought it might be Santa living in Pennsylvania

because they don't tax retirement funds.

However, what Jim learned was revelatory as it is.

Slower. Why? Cost. Jim explains.

Santa on the economy of Lancaster County and perhaps the Keystone State and definitely the

United States. More of this tonight.

He has a keen sense of the economy.

This was a shopping mall, Santa.

It's his third year at this wall.

He's done this gig at other parts of the country.

He said he thinks this Christmas is slower than the past two,

and he's basing it on the flow of children to his lap

to get their photo taken with Santa. I think he might have a little distorted view because

the parents of the children are young in general, and the younger penurious.

They're not as well off as the baby boomers.

My contention is that the baby boomers have been powering this economy.

But he said that it's significantly slower this year and he admitted that it's pricey.

You know, they sell packages of pictures.

They don't sell a single picture anymore. And the packages run from about $40 as a high to $60,

...