Economic Problems

WHEN the economy began to grow at a modestly improved 3.9 percent rate in the third quarter, there was a chorus of comment that further stimulus in the form of public works spending or other public outlay was no longer needed; many economists advised President-elect Clinton to let nature take its course and pursue deficit reduction.However, at his press conference last Tuesday, Mr. Clinton sensibly declared that in his view the economic slump is far from over. He stronglyhinted that budget balance will be postponed in favor of an economic recovery program.

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.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke easily outdistanced Samuel A. Culotta to win a second term in office and lead a Democratic sweep in a lethargic municipal election.Only 27.4 percent of the city's registered voters cast their ballots yesterday, the poorest General Election showing in many years. In 1987, turnout was 34 percent and in 1983 it was 37 percent.Barbara E. Jackson, administrator for the Board of Supervisors of Elections, said today that in her 24 years of watching people vote in Baltimore, the turnout was the lowest.

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.

NEW YORK -- With the recession and a presidential campaign placing an extraordinary emphasis on economic policy, Wall Street Week, a Maryland Public Television production, will feature tonight two of the nation's most prominent economic gurus, Nobel laureates Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson.Don't expect either to deliver a rousing new blueprint to quickly reinvigorate the nation, however.Indeed, while candidates and Congress are spewing forth one proposal after another stuffed with tax cuts and special incentives, these two men, heavyweight presidential advisers for the past three decades (as well as academically revered economic theoreticians)

After Dyan Brasington announced the county's ambitious proposed economic development plan last week, she had her work cut out for her."The first thing I'm going to do is take a look at my present budgetand reduce it," said Brasington, the county's economic development administrator. County Executive Charles I. Ecker has asked her to makemore than $20,000 in cuts in preparation for yet another manifestation of "Ecker-nomics," as Brasington calls it.The prospect of further cuts is worrisome to county business leaders who believe the economic development program had been neglected under the administration of former county executive M. Elizabeth Bobo.

SO MANY QUESTIONS remain about President Boris N. Yeltsin's poor health -- and who is in control in the Kremlin -- that his convincing re-election yesterday evokes relief but not much enthusiasm. At a time when Russia desperately needs a forceful and forward-looking leader, it clearly will not have either. Even as the Yeltsin second term begins, the Kremlin is embroiled in intrigues over power and succession.This is a sad and troubling situation, which endangers the fledgling democratic reforms undertaken during the five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

WASHINGTON -- There is a central underlying problem with the economy at the moment: too many workers chasing too few jobs.The economy is expanding too weakly to absorb the new entrants to the labor force, 700,000 in the past two months alone. And employers are relying on overtime rather than hiring to meet what anemic consumer demand there is. Job creation actually went into reverse in June for the first time in five months, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent, its highest level in eight years.

Honolulu, Hawaii--I have an Aunt Bert who says that when you "go visiting," you can always tell a lot about your hosts by how clean they keep their house. As a transplanted Baltimorean temporarily living in Hawaii for 10 months, I can honestly say this state would knock my 82-year-old aunt's socks off."Clean" should be the Hawaiian state motto. It is a state that has virtually never seen graffiti and has public restrooms that are spotless and contain -- wait till you hear this, Aunt Bert -- soap, toilet paper and paper towels.

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.