Economics

The housing market's continuing struggles have upset the retirement plans of millions of Americans, keeping more of them in their current homes, waiting for diminished equity to reappear. Others plan to move, but they appear to be demanding something much different from what they wanted before the real estate boom turned to bust: smaller, less expensive retirement houses they can afford with their reduced means. At the start of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, economists weren't anticipating that the long-term trend toward retirement living would be derailed.

Player             School           Class           Major Robert Church    Drexel             So.       Sport mngmt. Jeff Crosby          Cabrini             So.           Finance Chris Ficke          Villanova          Sr.       Accounting Travis Gregory       Haverford          Sr.        Economics Dillon Hamill       Haverford          Jr.

IT IS AWFUL THAT terrorist attacks on London's subways caused the death of so many innocent victims. But it is also appalling, as Rob Thomas of the alternative-music band Matchbox Twenty stated during the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia "that more Africans die from preventable disease on a daily basis than twice the people who died during the infamous 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. " However, unless a person is watching public television, tragedies in industrialized nations always garner more media attention than those in undeveloped nations.

Something Sen. Dan Quayle cheerfully said during the debate has lifted a heavy load of worry from my mind. It came after Sen. Lloyd Bentsen pointed out that under the Reagan administration, we have become the No. 1 debtor nation in the world. As Bentsen said: "They've (foreign nations) bought 10 percent of the manufacturing base of this country. They bought 20 percent of the banks. They own 46 percent of the commercial real estate in Los Angeles. They're buying America on the cheap.

Organic farming can yield "real and significant" environmental and health benefits, but the jury is still out on whether it pays farmers to adopt such a strategy, two analysts write. More research "designed to increase the profitability of alternative agriculture deserves serious consideration," according to Pierre R. Crosson and Janet Ekey Ostrov. Farmers "receive few of the environmental benefits of alternative agriculture because many of these, such as improved water quality, occur off the farm, or like improved wildlife habitat, cannot be captured in economic terms," they wrote in a newsletter of Resources for the Future, a Washington- based environmental policy research organization.

A huge yellow banner with red and black words is erected against the edge of a sidewalk in Southwest Philadelphia, soliciting passing drivers to blow their horns for "Black Power. " Meanwhile, a handful of protesters passes out fliers or yells to passers- by, alerting them that the Wild Wild West hoagie shop at 52nd Street and Kingsessing Avenue "is closed. " The shop owner has obtained a court order to keep the protesters - most of whom are activists from outside the neighborhood - at arm's length, while some residents patronize the shop despite the demonstration.

Freakonomics: odd word, two roots that don't belong to the same tree. The ?onomics part speaks of the august, dour study of economics. But freak speaks of - freaks and the freaky. The word says it all: Look closely at the reasons people do things, and what you find can be really - freaky. Coined by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, freakonomics is on many people's lips. Dubner appears at 12:30 p.m. today at the Free Library to talk about their new book, Superfreakonomics.

Chances are their names won't sound familiar. But you will hear from them. Of that, they are sure. They are tomorrow's leaders, and at 16 and 17 years of age, they are facing the problems of today. "They are our future," said Lila Booth, a business consultant. "We are talking about posterity here. " On Friday, under the watchful eye of Booth, 42 youngsters, graduating from a program in which they learned about business from businesspeople, showed that they had also learned a lot about life.

THE EDITORIAL board must have been out sick when economic fundamentals were taught in high school, or they would've learned that governmental control of salaries (minimum wage) is one of the main tenets of socialism. The board is free to pander to those who lack education or drive to make a decent living without state handouts disguised as progressive legislation. Employees are paid their worth as determined by the market. Those unhappy with their lot need to work to improve it. For advice and inspiration, they can turn to millions of us who earn a living wage without the benefits of state interference.

Alex Gardezky, 66, retired professor of economics at Villanova University, died Friday at his home in Melrose Park. Mr. Gardezky was born in Sokoliwka, Ukraine. He completed high school in the city of Kolomyja in 1943 and immediately joined the First Ukrainian Division to fight against the Russian occupation of Ukraine. Captured by Allied forces late in the war, he remained a prisoner under U.S. troops in Grenoble, France, from 1945 to 1948. Upon his release, Mr. Gardezky attended the Sorbonne University Law School for two years under the sponsorship of an aunt living in France.

The 1940 census was released by the National Archives in April, offering those interested the opportunity find out where Uncle Fritz and Aunt Bessie grew up. But experts have been privy for many years to information about housing in 1940, when ramped-up war production finally brought an end to the Great Depression. What was it like? Well, 18 percent of housing was in need of major repair. That meant that almost seven million of the 37.4 million dwellings in the United States were dilapidated.

What kind of real estate agent is Mayfair broker Christopher J. Artur? Let's see what NeighborCity's AgentMatch, billed as a way to pair "the best-performing agents with the specific needs of home sellers and buyers," has to say about this veteran of more than 40 years in the business: "[Artur] is an elite Pennsylvania real estate agent, ranked in the upper 8 percent of his peers at the 92d percentile. He has completed at least 24 transactions with an average sale price of $76,000.

The Delaware County Industrial Development Authority on Wednesday announced it has contracted with IHS Global Inc. to study potential uses for the 781-acre Sunoco Inc. Marcus Hook complex. The $100,000 study, which the Delaware County Council has agreed to finance, is expected to be completed in a month. Sunoco shut down its refinery in December, but says it has received no credible offers to operate the site as a refinery. IHS Global, an international information company with experts in energy, economics, sustainability and supply-chain management, is based in Colorado and has local offices in Eddystone.

  One of Gov. Christie's most colorful quotes last week had nothing to with the presidential race, Bruce Springsteen, or the fat jokes hurled at him at last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. When Christie said Monday that he would rather "rearrange my sock drawer tonight" than debate Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D., Camden), he was talking taxes, specifically their differing plans to cut them. Economics and tax experts interviewed for this story differed on the merits of the three tax-cut plans under review in Trenton.

The housing market's continuing struggles have upset the retirement plans of millions of Americans, keeping more of them in their current homes, waiting for diminished equity to reappear. Others plan to move, but they appear to be demanding something much different from what they wanted before the real estate boom turned to bust: smaller, less expensive retirement houses they can afford with their reduced means. At the start of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, economists weren't anticipating that the long-term trend toward retirement living would be derailed.

Wall Street gnawed on a muddle of economic data and corporate earnings news Thursday, then sent stock indexes lower for a second day. Disappointing April sales results from big retailers set the bleak tone early on. Costco, Macy's and Target, among others, reported sales that were weaker than analysts had predicted. Colder weather and renewed concerns about the economy weighed on shoppers. GM shares fell 2.4 percent after the automaker said its first-quarter profit declined, mainly because of weakness in Europe.

CAMPAIGNING to make economic "fairness" the central theme of his re-election campaign, President Obama on April 10 pitched his "Buffett Rule" tax hike to a student audience at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Aimed at those who earn the bulk of their income from capital gains, the plan would double the tax rate on capital gains from 15 percent to 30 percent. Obama didn't tell the students that taxes on capital gains aren't adjusted for inflation. He didn't explain how the 15 percent tax rate on capital gains is actually a 30 percent rate on real, inflation-adjusted gains if price increases have wiped out half the purchasing power of reported gains.

There was an Alcatrazlike quality to it, the way it all went down Wednesday in Row 24 of US Airways Flight 1419, as the tiny food cart on my jammed Philadelphia-to-Los Angeles flight rolled up. The snack cart, we had been warned by a flight attendant over the public-address system, might run out of food. This was largely by design, she explained, not stocking enough food for everyone on board. Oh, and what was on the menu - an Italian club wrap, a chicken salad, a fruit-and-cheese offering, snack boxes - would have to be purchased.

In the first quarter of 2012, city records show, 3,148 single-family houses were sold in Philadelphia. And nearly one-third of the sellers, 902, were lenders, government agencies, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That number represents an unprecedented level of distressed-home transactions, even when compared with the previous 24 quarters, stretching back through the housing bust to first-quarter 2006. The next-highest quarterly number — 451 foreclosure sales — occurred in first-quarter 2010.

During the housing boom, a borrower's ability to exhale appeared to be the chief criterion for obtaining a mortgage. Six years of record foreclosures later, with millions of borrowers owing more than their properties are worth, the housing market continues to tread water. To prevent this from happening again, the Dodd-Frank financial-reform act of 2010 required that changes be made. The chief targets: such mortgage instruments as "interest-only" and "negative-amortization" loans, both of which allowed marginal borrowers to buy more house than they could have ever possibly afforded.