The meager growth has depended primarily on hot products endorsed by superstar athletes - a trend that has not escaped the notice of companies accustomed to dealing with entertainment superstars.

In continued evidence of meager economic growth, retail sales edged three-tenths of 1 percent higher in September amid subdued inflation, the Government said today.

The German government acknowledged today that economic growth had stagnated, and it predicted that the economy would expand by just 0.75 percent this year and show meager growth in 2002.

After a period of meager growth last year, evidence has been accumulating that the country may have technically slipped into another recession in the current quarter.

That is hampering an economy struggling to better last year's meager growth, weighing on stock prices and subduing consumer spending.

Early indications are that much of Corporate America managed to wring better-than-predicted profits out of meager overall economic growth in the first quarter.

A16 The economy nearly came to a halt in the second quarter of this year, with the meager growth being far worse than previously thought, the Commerce Department reported.

Among them was the increase in domestic tobacco operating profits, which were up 16 percent - a sharp contrast to recent years of flat or only meager growth.

Figures released by the Japanese government last week confirmed that Japan's economy remains highly dependent on exports for the meager growth it has managed recently.

And now the spending that made even this meager growth possible is at risk.