If it is any solace, similar problems are afflicting the consumer long-distance units at WorldCom and Sprint.
Other deep underlying problems that are afflicting the U.S. economy, such as stagnant wage growth and rising inequality, remain unresolved.
Yet Vietnam's banks are in trouble.As befits a "mixed economy" of a communist core with market fringes, Vietnam is suffering from an assortment of the various calamities that are afflicting banks elsewhere in Asia.
Timor-Leste's independent newspapers face many of the same problems that are afflicting the business elsewhere, depending as they do on revenue earned by paid advertisements, and especially those bought by the government.
But Ron Deutsch, the executive director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, a liberal advocacy group, said the state needed the extra revenue from high incomes, especially with the tight budgets that are afflicting many school districts and local governments.
"Quite clearly this is an opportunity for the G8 leaders to sit down and discuss, I hope in a very serious and meaningful way, many of the issues which are afflicting the world at this time," he said.
