I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Jim McTag, former Washington editor of of Barron's now a novelist in Lancaster County.

We begin in Lancaster County watching the American economy. If Lancaster is doing well,

the Keystone State is doing well, and Pennsylvania is doing well. America is doing well.

Jim, you've been asking questions and coming up with answers that are a mixed opinion.

First, let's go to Costco.

What did you learn?

I learned that business this year has been moderate.

It hasn't been awful, but it's not as robust as it was in 2025.

I talked to the people in the optical department, and they've seen slow traffic

all year because the tariffs have impacted the cost of frames. The lenses are pretty much the

same price they were in 2025, but the frames are up substantially, and that has people foregoing

a new pair of grasses. So we have anecdotal evidence that tariffs slow business in America.

Yes, certain businesses are feeling the impact because consumers, it turns out that their apococococbooks are maybe not as elastic as we think.

For some time, there's been anecdote after an anecdote that the businesses themselves or the

clients absorb the tax. What you're saying is that nobody's absorbing the tax. They're just

not shopping. All right. Let's go in pursuit of layoffs. Do you have layoffs in Lancaster County?

Not in the county itself,

but we have a neighboring county, York, which is across the Susquehanna River. They have 200 layoffs at the end of June at a plant that's owned by Church and Dwight. That's the corporation

that owns Arm and Hammer products,

OxyClean, you know, a lot of the essentials that you see on your supermarket shelf,

Church and Dwight. They just reported pretty decent earnings. They just paid like the

50 second or some enormous number of consecutive dividend payments, but they're cutting 200 people.

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