I'm John Batchler. I welcome my good colleague Jim McTag, former Washington editor

Barron's magazine,

now a novelist in Lancaster County, the best county in the Keystone State, watching the crisis

in the Middle East and the shortages and price spikes in Europe, hearing constantly about the

concerns of the global community for energy and for solving the

escalating war in the Middle East, we go to Lancaster for how it lives under the constant bad

news out of Washington and the Middle East. A very good evening to you, Jim. When the going gets tough, the tough goes shopping. In your case,

you went to a pastry shop. What pastry shop? Where? What did you do there? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. First of all, Lancaster's economy is a mirror of the U.S. economy. We have every

sector. So we are a great indicator. We also have the Park City Mall. It's a shopping mall that was

built, an indoor shopping mall built in the 70s when malls were hot items. And guess what? Park City

is still a pretty hot item in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It's a throwback. And in that mall is a pop-up pastry stand,

French pastry. The baker is from Paris. His wife, who doesn't speak French, incidentally,

she was in health care for 14 years, but his wife runs this concession. It is just filled with the most

delicious-looking cakes that you can imagine. It's something that should be in Manhattan,

not in Park City, well, in Rochester, but anyway, it's here.

We love it.

And she sells out virtually every day.

So she tells me, you know, from the point of view of a small business, they haven't been

impacted by the higher gasoline prices because they don't really, they only drive from

her home to Park City Mall to set up.

And she says that the shoppers are more inclined to splurge on a pastry than, say, a piece of jewelry from the jewelry store that is opposite her.

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