Q: Do you see a serious recession coming?

A: I think it depends on policy. If Obama gets elected and we raise tax rates, yes, we'll have a very serious recession. And if the government borrows tremendous amounts of money from the future and spends it on silly, stupid things, then, yes, we will have a very serious recession -- or maybe even something we could call a "New Depression." Maybe not "The Great Depression," but as you may recall from history, there were many depressions in the 19th century. We could have a depression of our own here in this decade ... . This bill would be a huge tax on our future, which would keep economic growth sluggish for a long time. There's no way to avoid bad stuff happening from this point forward, but government spending a lot of money in silly ways and borrowing that money from our future will really hurt us.

Q: How will Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania fare in the economic conditions we'll be facing?

A: In Pennsylvania, in general, our tax rates are still too high. We have the second-highest corporate net income tax in the country. As long as we have that we are going to be unattractive to capital and new business and jobs. That's the bad news -- that Pennsylvania is set up to be anti-business.

The good news is because we've had those bad economic policies in place for a long time in Pennsylvania, we've not been a boom economy. Especially in our part of the state, in the Pittsburgh area, we never had the big increase in home prices. We never had the boom, so we're not having the same kind of bust that Florida and Nevada and California and other higher-growth parts of the country are having. As I look at the next six months, I think we'll probably experience less pain than other places.

Q: Who do you think will win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4 and who's going to be the next president?

A: I strongly support John McCain. I think he's the better of the two options. Right now the chances are that Barack Obama is going to be our next president, based on the polls I'm seeing. I think regular people are making the same mistake that they made in reaction to the Great Depression.

They think the problem is a failure of capitalism, is a failure of markets, is a failure of banks and bank executives. The truth is, the failure is a failure of government policy. My fear is that because people think it's a failure of capitalism, they are going to vote for the anti-capitalist candidate. If I was going to bet today, I'd say that is what we are going to get and it's going to be a very tough four years.