Economic Problems

In formally announcing the end of this baseball season, somebody named Bud Selig, who represents the franchise owners, went on TV and used the phrase "terrible economic problem" to describe their plight.I have nothing but compassion for those who have a "terrible economic problem." And while I'm not a businessman, I know a little bit about "economic problems." Not necessarily "terrible," but somewhat uncomfortable.During my childhood, there were times when we could barely pay the rent on our Armitage Avenue flat and couldn't afford our own telephone.

Drawing parallels between government spending policy and household finances has its perils. There's an extraordinary difference in scale, for one thing. And there's the matter that people will often argue against government debt on the grounds that debt amounting to three or four times household income is financially crippling, even though just about everyone who owns a house and a car is carrying at least that much debt. A few realities of debt and finance, however, apply to every situation involving money.

The best way to predict how President Bush or Gov. Bil Clinton would shape America's long-term economic future is to look at their different interpretations of what happened to the economy in the 1980s.It's in their role as historians, rather than economists, that the sharp differences between the two men are seen most clearly -- differences often obscured by the "chicken in every pot" rhetoric that typically marks political campaigns.Mr. Bush, if only because he was Ronald Reagan's vice president for eight years, sees the economic course that Mr. Reagan charted as a fundamentally wise one that banished the plagues of high inflation, high interest rates and meddlesome government of the 1970s and unleashed the greatest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history.

- Arguing that he needs more time to fix the nation's sluggish economy, President Barack Obama formally accepted his party's nomination for a second term Thursday while stressing that voters will face a stark choice in November that could affect their lives for decades to come. The Democratic incumbent laid out a series of goals for the economy - most of them familiar - and repeatedly said his policies would take middle-class families down a vastly different path than those of his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

- Arguing that he needs more time to fix the nation's sluggish economy, President Barack Obama formally accepted his party's nomination for a second term Thursday while stressing that voters will face a stark choice in November that could affect their lives for decades to come. The Democratic incumbent laid out a series of goals for the economy - most of them familiar - and repeatedly said his policies would take middle-class families down a vastly different path than those of his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

WASHINGTON -- What's in it for us?The question might seem crude, but it doubtless occurred to many Americans when they learned last week that the International Monetary Fund is going to loan Russia another $22.6 billion.That's a lot of cash. Where does it go? And haven't we been down this road with Russia before, with little to show for it?"Russia is a special case," said Willard Workman, vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Part of this is not economic.

Drawing parallels between government spending policy and household finances has its perils. There's an extraordinary difference in scale, for one thing. And there's the matter that people will often argue against government debt on the grounds that debt amounting to three or four times household income is financially crippling, even though just about everyone who owns a house and a car is carrying at least that much debt. A few realities of debt and finance, however, apply to every situation involving money.

WASHINGTON -- At a time when Washington is rushing to enact a package of election-year tax relief, most Americans say they would rather use the post-Cold War "peace dividend" to boost domestic spending or reduce the deficit than to finance tax cuts, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll.While Americans remain largely pessimistic about the economy, the nationwide poll found little evidence of a mounting grass-roots tax revolt that might pressure Congress to rush through the kind of anti-recession tax cuts advocated by President Bush and key Democrats.

SLATS GROBNIK scowled, carefully folded his newspaper and dropped it on the barroom floor."You know what this country needs?" he said. "A neat little war."Are you crazy? We just had a war."Yeah, and now what?"Now what? Now we have returned to a normal life."That's what I mean. Who needs normal? Normal is a recession. I don't want to think about a recession. Normal is we got too many poor people. I don't want to think about poor people. Normal is we got too much crime. I don't want to think about crime.

Economists may be forecasting a turnaround for the sagging economy, but that hasn't stopped county residents from worrying.The economy tops the list of their concerns, according to a survey conducted byAnne Arundel Community College. For the second time in four months, residents have cited economic problems as their main worry.Yet residents' responses also indicated that they are somewhat optimistic about their future."I found that most interesting," saidElizabeth Kessel, director of the college's Center for the Study of Local Issues.

The most consequential national tax policy change during the past three decades has been the steady shift of the nation's tax burden from wealth to work. This shift in tax priorities is connected to stagnant growth, unemployment, economic inequality, societal stress and, of course, our national deficit and debt problems. It wasn't always this way. The 25 years following World War II were a time of great American prosperity, growth and expansion of the middle class. I can't tell you how many Americans old enough to remember have told me America was a better country then, and economically speaking, they're right.

Many Americans struggling through the current recession would be happy to endorse the "Buy America" provision in the recently passed stimulus bill. Clothing made in China, cars produced in Japan and store shelves stocked with imports provoke disgruntled complaints about lower-paid foreign workers. But our protective instincts are largely misguided. This country is too closely tied to the global economy to dig itself out of the current trouble without helping our trading partners recover too. Still, only 35 percent of the public thinks trade agreements have been good for the country, a recent survey shows.

WASHINGTON - The collapse of legislation to bail out the U.S. auto industry is a fitting end to this year in Congress - and a warning to President-elect Barack Obama that even larger Democratic majorities next year won't guarantee smooth sailing for his ambitious agenda on economics and other issues. Polarized, beset by crises and preoccupied with ideological and regional politics, this Congress followed a pattern familiar in the past decade. It railed and wrangled over the nation's toughest problems but in the end failed to advance solutions.

Amid uncertainty over the reeling economy, workers want answers - or at least some information - from higher-ups about how the financial turmoil could affect them. That kind of feedback goes a long way to help relieve anxiety and avoid the rumor mill, workplace experts say. "As a general rule, most managers will be well-served to share information," says Robert Trumble, professor of management at Virginia Commonwealth University's business school and director of the Virginia Labor Studies Center.

It was not that long ago that philanthropy in a place like Baltimore was tinged with an "alms-to-the-poor" aura. There was a bit of noblesse oblige involved in helping ease the miseries of those known as the less fortunate, as well as supporting the standard variety of educational and cultural institutions. That was then. Now, such philanthropy is almost an industry whose leaders spout buzz terms like "strategic coordination" and "leveraging" and "accountability." "Foundations have become much more significant in the local community over the last 20 years," says Robert Embry, head of the Abell Foundation.

SOMETHING had to give. For months, Argentina's president, Eduardo Duhalde, has struggled to restore something approaching order to the country's shattered economy. His efforts have largely been in vain. Six months after the disastrous collapse of the peso and the financial system, virtually no progress has been made. The economy is in its fourth year of recession, unemployment is about 24 percent, and riots have returned to the streets of Buenos Aires. Duhalde, an interim president whose poll ratings have fallen to 8 percent, had nowhere to turn.

WASHINGTON - The collapse of legislation to bail out the U.S. auto industry is a fitting end to this year in Congress - and a warning to President-elect Barack Obama that even larger Democratic majorities next year won't guarantee smooth sailing for his ambitious agenda on economics and other issues. Polarized, beset by crises and preoccupied with ideological and regional politics, this Congress followed a pattern familiar in the past decade. It railed and wrangled over the nation's toughest problems but in the end failed to advance solutions.

Amid uncertainty over the reeling economy, workers want answers - or at least some information - from higher-ups about how the financial turmoil could affect them. That kind of feedback goes a long way to help relieve anxiety and avoid the rumor mill, workplace experts say. "As a general rule, most managers will be well-served to share information," says Robert Trumble, professor of management at Virginia Commonwealth University's business school and director of the Virginia Labor Studies Center.

WASHINGTON -- What's in it for us?The question might seem crude, but it doubtless occurred to many Americans when they learned last week that the International Monetary Fund is going to loan Russia another $22.6 billion.That's a lot of cash. Where does it go? And haven't we been down this road with Russia before, with little to show for it?"Russia is a special case," said Willard Workman, vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Part of this is not economic.

METRO Baltimore has long had a complex about its rich sister in Washington's Maryland suburbs.Baltimore is Bethlehem Steel, Formstone, crabs and lunch boxes. Suburban Washington is lawyers, bureaucrats, secretaries, briefcases and Orioles dilettantes.Baltimore is an economic striver, overcoming factory decline, new shipping patterns, crime and urban decay to make its commercial way. The D.C. suburbs, by contrast, always seemed to add jobs and income with the ease of an Energy Department undersecretary gliding through a revolving door into a lobbying firm.