S8 Ep326: ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN INDICATORS AND SECRECY AT THE WHITE HOUSE Colleague Jim McTague, Former Washington Editor of Barron's. Jim McTague observes unusually light traffic and retail activity in Washington, D.C. and Lancaster, signaling a potential economic slo

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John Batchelor

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4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN INDICATORS AND SECRECY AT THE WHITE HOUSE Colleague Jim McTague, Former Washington Editor of Barron's. Jim McTague observes unusually light traffic and retail activity in Washington, D.C. and Lancaster, signaling a potential economic slowdown. He notes blocked views of White House construction and predicts a recession driven by rising state taxes and the depletion of pandemic-era stimulus funds for local governments. NUMBER 16
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0:58.2	I'm John Batchel to Chile, Chile, Lancaster County, the best county in the Keystone State, maybe the nation.
1:05.6	Jim McTag, my good colleague, former Washington editor of Barron's Magazine, now a novelist in Chile, Lancaster County.
1:06.4	What do you expect?
1:07.6	It's wintertime.
1:08.2	It's January.
1:30.2	So what does McTagg and enterprising journalists do? He drives to Washington, D.C. All right, McTag. Now we want to report on the streets of D.C. What did you see? Good evening to you. Good evening, John. You know, it's two and a half hours to drive from Lancaster to downtown Washington, D.C. I went to the Army and Navy Club, which is two blocks from the White House.
1:37.1	No white knuckle driving, as is usually the case, especially around Baltimore.
1:41.9	I had a wonderfully relaxed drive into the city.
1:47.8	It took exactly what Apple Carplace said it would take, two hours and 35 minutes. I have valet parking. I thought the city was fairly empty, and I'm sure it was unusually
1:58.3	cold in Washington. It was in a low 30s, and it was a 10 to 20 mile an hour wind, which made being outdoors quite miserable.
2:08.3	So for me, commuting there by car, it was a pleasant experience.
2:14.1	And I came back that night, by the way, and it was an even easier drive.
2:18.5	Do you mean there's no traffic in the Beltway? You didn't see it?
2:22.0	Oh, no, there were no traffic tie-ups on the Beltway, either. Usually Baltimore is the choke point.
2:31.3	Yeah. The traffic was moving steady, steady movement.
	...

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