And even before the current crunch, analysts were saying that to keep pace with demand, the city would have to construct 40,000 new apartments every year - a number even they admit is unrealistic.

In discussing the theater's current financial crunch, Mr. Toppo said: "In our second season in Stamford, we have to rebuild.

Paradoxically, much of the current crunch in financing stems from biomedicine's triumphs in delving into the origin of cancer, the birth and death of cells, the cause of AIDS, and the like.

Among the most important changes is the requirement that the state make regular contributions - a change that would end efforts to avoid pension contributions when times are good and a change that might have saved us from the current budgetary crunch.

For today's new Russia, the current economic crunch is the first real, cyclical crisis, of the kind which bring profound corrections to the world economy in long cycles of 30-35 years.

"Expertise is perishable," notes Paul Krugman, an economist at M.I.T.: If Russia does not find a way to keep its most productive scientific groups intact through the current financial crunch, the hard job of building a modern market economy will be even harder.

The current financial crunch has little to do with Hamas.

Indeed, the current crunch is in large part a consequence of Westchester's success in getting people off welfare and into the work force.

Why the current crunch?

The current economic crunch, where airlines are pushing the limits of the rules as well as their pilots, has made the need for reforms even more urgent.