Economic Problems

BERLIN -- A new breed of joke has sprung up in Germany: the East German or "Ossi" joke. A child of German unity, the jokes are the rage of the smug west but resented in the east, where people maintain that they really don't try to correct misspellings on a word processor with correction fluid.Most of the jokes have a common thread: The eastern German is the helpless pre-modern man confronted with high-tech machines and a fast-paced lifestyle. They want to be good Germans but just can't seem to tell the difference between a washing machine and a television.

The headline of the Sun's recent editorial on the jobs bill ("Let them eat tax cuts," Sept. 12) seems ironic to this writer. The origin of the parodied saying came from the last days before the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette was heard to say, in response to bread shortages caused by the profligacy of the Bourbon monarchy, "Let them eat cake. " This reference was to the citizens who eventually took down the monarchy in the most brutal fashion. So according to The Sun editorial writers, we citizens should accept without criticism the proposal by the current administration to throw more money into the well.

A new study has tentatively answered a century-old question: does poverty cause mental illness, or does mental illness cause people to drift down the economic ladder?Depression appears to be a consequence, not a cause of poverty, according to a researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.The stress of fighting discrimination as they battle their way up from poverty leaves formerly poor people more depressed and anti-social than their middle-class neighbors, said Bruce P. Dohrenwend, chief of the department of social psychiatry at the psychiatric institute.

Congratulations to Dr. Errol L. Reese on his installation as president of the University of Maryland at Baltimore. In his year as effective head of what he calls "the public institution of higher education in Maryland for educating health and human service professionals" -- physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and lawyers -- he has displayed a readiness to innovate and break out of the parochialism that has isolated so many state universities...

A Pasadena woman accused of setting fire to her SUV — for which she was behind in payments — was sentenced to six months in jail Wednesday. Around 11:30 p.m. Feb. 24, 2009, Edwina V. Spence's 2003 Chevrolet Blazer was found burning on a dark road in an industrial area of Glen Burnie. The fire was set from inside, barely a half-hour before she reported it stolen to Baltimore police, said Assistant State's Attorney Warren Davis III. Spence was two months behind in payments, and the vehicle was in need of engine work.

Maryland shed 6,000 jobs in April, the federal government said Friday — the largest monthly loss in the country during a month when most states gained, but one that might have been overstated. The figures, which are preliminary and adjusted for seasonal variations, paint a much less rosy picture of Maryland employment than in recent months. As it released the April numbers, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that it also revised downward its estimate for March, showing Maryland losing 600 jobs rather than adding 1,500.

WASHINGTON -- Janet L. Norwood, veteran U.S. commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, decries Washington's lack of leadership on economic problems, saying the country is being polarized by the growth of the most severe gap between the poorest and richest Americans she has seen in 38 years of government service."

Sen. John McCain likes to compare his Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover, the conservative Republican president whose tax hikes and restrictive trade policies have been blamed for deepening America's Great Depression in the early 1930s. But a closer look at Mr. McCain's economic proposals -- aiming to reduce the deficit and cut government spending in the midst of a serious financial crisis -- make him sound more like Mr. Hoover. Senator Obama's proposals to seek more public spending to reverse the current economic decline are more reminiscent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the honored warrior against the Great Depression.

NEW YORK -- The dollar rose above 120 yen yesterday for the first time in nearly four years, only to tumble and end the day little changed after a report that the Bank of Japan bought yen for dollars.The dollar's slide began after Japan's NHK television network said the central bank purchased yen for the first time in more than 4 1/2 years to stem the currency's decline.While monetary officials wouldn't comment on the report, traders said it appeared that either the central bank sold dollars or Japanese officials urged investors to sell.

NEW DELHI - Incoming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised yesterday that he will reshape economic reforms to benefit millions of India's poor, promote religious harmony and seek peace with rival Pakistan. "I have always been saying that we need reforms," Singh told reporters here. "We will increase reforms, but it will be reforms with a human face, reforms that benefit the common man of our country." Singh said his coalition government's goal is to be friendly to investors while addressing some of India's most chronic problems, such as poorly funded hospitals and schools, and the lack of adequate housing for hundreds of millions living in poverty.