The ritual holds special challenges this year, with administrators caught in a financial straitjacket that leaves little room for program enhancements.

LORI KOCH, a lawyer, is one of the innumerable New Yorkers trapped in a studio that has become a financial straitjacket.

"I don't know," he said, "if interest rates could fall low enough to get the household sector out of the financial straitjacket they are in."

For now, the company appears on track to escape from a financial straitjacket of mounting debts that has limited its ability to invest in new businesses or make acquisitions.

In his speech, he said the organization was in a "financial straitjacket" that hindered reforms demanded by Congress and others.

AOL Time Warner must wriggle out of a financial straitjacket of heavy debt and stagnant profits in part by selling some of its assets.

An angry, persuasive assault, by an experienced journalist, on rule by voter initiative and the shrinking financial straitjacket in which California now struggles.

"With a new agreement, we would not be in such a financial straitjacket."

"The Safe Streets restrictions have become a financial straitjacket during this fiscal crisis," he said.

That fateful decision sent Ewing away to stumble around in Seattle and Orlando for two unsightly seasons while the Knicks repositioned themselves into the financial straitjacket they still wear.