The problems besetting the U.S. economy these days are global in scope--and so, necessarily, was the reporting for this week's cover story. In response to detailed queries prepared by Business section Senior Editor George Church, who wrote the main story, staffers from nearly all of TIME's 27 bureaus around the world fanned out to take the measure of the general economic malaise. In addition, TIME's domestic correspondents were asked to add a personal dimension to the story by finding out how individual Americans are coping--or not coping--with inflation. The resulting vignettes, which accompany Church's piece, amply illustrate the truth of President Ford's remark that ordinary citizens are at least as aware of the wobbliness of the economy as the experts.

But the experts, of cour se, were still vital to our story. Moments after the cover was scheduled, New York Correspondent John Tompkins got a call from C. Jackson Grayson Jr., an old friend who had headed Richard Nixon's Price Commission and is now helping to plan President Ford's upcoming economic summit. Says Tompkins, who worked for Grayson while on leave from TIME in 1972: "It was serendipity--my first interview came completely unsolicited." In Washington, National Economics Correspondent John Berry put in a breathless week shuttling among meetings with various Administration advisers and policymakers. "Mine is a great beat to be on right now," says Berry. "It is a relief to see everyone's attention focused on an issue other than Watergate."

As valuable as any of TIME's resources in putting together this week's story was our Board of Economists. The eight members of the board, who include three former members of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, meet TIME's editors in New York once each quarter and are consulted frequently on a less formal basis. For this week's effort, Reporter-Researchers Sarah Button and Paul Witteman elicited views from most of the eight, though some were on vacation and one was on the far side of a creaky phone connection to Copenhagen. Correspondent Berry spent several hours with Alan Greenspan, who resigned from the TIME Board when Ford named him to be the new CEA chairman.

Berry finds that "Greenspan is a delight to interview. He takes great pains to be precise and to present his views in complete packages.

After talking with him, you don't go back over your notes and discover missing essential ingredients." TIME trusts that Greenspan's precision will be equally appreciated in his new role.

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