Next Generation Economics

Economics has long been called the dismal science because there is no science there.  That all changed with Peace Economics.   Military Spending is a direct substitute for capital investment and economic growth.  Manufacturing and Military Spending are in competition for the same resources.  The industrial inland Midwest competes with the Coastal and Southern states for the same resources under control of the federal government, its politicians, and the mainstream national security dominated press.  The story of declining empire is the story of our times, often hidden behind simplistic financial stories and other red herrings.

The precision of this new theory is so strong it becomes a science like physics rather than another social science.  Conventional economics is to the social sciences what social promotion is to the schools, just another effort to “get by” when there is no accuracy.  Thirteen defining aspects of this theory have an average correlation of .97 with eight over .99.

https://www.academia.edu/4044456/Military_DisEconomics_SUMMARY_High_Accuracy_13_1_p._2013

To the 24 hour day, 365 day year, twelve month year, and four seasons, we must add the 54 year long cycle which defines the timing of climate change, economic change, major wars, and weather disasters with a new kind of season of about 13.5 years each.  All attempts to forecast global temperature changes are folly without including this long cycle, as the globe keeps failing to exceed the 1998 peak temperature year until the next major war and cold year in 2025.  Juglar waves of eight to ten years are a key component of the new science.

https://www.academia.edu/5558307/Military_Economics_Model_US_Long_Term_18ppt_3p._2014

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640

bobreuschlein@gmail.com

http://www.wortfm.org/friday-january-3-2014/  for audio of this message (see bottom of page)

Major Wars Occur in Cold Years

Great Wars occur at the end of the cooling cycle of the 54 year cycle.  So about 27 years after the hottest year of a period comes the coldest year of that complete cycle.  Often that is the exact year a major war starts.  Often the second biggest war of the cycle comes in the second coldest year of the cooling period, about fifteen years before the major war.  This cooling part of the long cycle is the high economic growth part of the cycle, as cooling helps economic growth.  Because this is the high growth part of the cycle, economic differences among nations are enlarged to a maximum extent by the end of the cooling phase of the cycle.  This maximizes tensions between the great powers.  Often there are two or three years of cooling in a row and the last year of cooling is the trigger year of the major war.  Having had a tune up war along the way against a lesser power emboldens the major power to take on the main enemy in the major war.  Next scheduled major war cold year?  2025.

https://www.academia.edu/5479721/Coldest_Year_Major_Wars_Weather_Wealth_and_Wars_2p._1999

for 2 page article, 8 war chart, on my academic website.
After this major war comes the heat wave part of the cycle which is largely peaceful with only minor wars or about 7% of the major or second major wars of the cooling period.  This peaceful period has a major economic collapse about halfway through the 27 year heating period.  The timing of the secondary war is usually right at the peak growth rate of the cooling cycle, about halfway through.  Then the timing of the economic collapse is thirty years later followed by a rise period of 24 years to the next economic peak and the next secondary war, for a total of 54 years in a complete cycle.

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640

bobreuschlein@gmail.com

Madison Wisconsin radio station WORT radio (89.9 FM) will play this four times today (12-27-13).
At 5am, 6:30am, and 9am CT right after the 8 0’clock Buzz show.
Then later at 2pm CTright after the Mel and Floyd political comedy show.
http://www.wortfm.org/friday-december-27-2013/ for audio (at bottom of page)

Football and Empire

Only 10% of the Roman gladiators died, but career NFL football players lose twenty years off their lifespan.  That’s about 25% of their lifespan.  The sport of empire replaced Baseball in popularity a half generation after World War II.

The number one sport in America today is football.  Football is a very militaristic sport.  The troops, or the participants in the sport, 11 on each team, there’s offense and there’s defense.  There are the players on the front line, and they’re referred to as “in the trenches,” like World War I foot soldiers they’re in the trenches, doing the tough work in the trenches just like the infantry.  And the highest thing you can do in a football game is score a touchdown by throwing “the bomb,” another militaristic term.   Another term is “blitzing”; linebackers blitz the line.   https://www.academia.edu/5392466/Football_Baseball_and_Empire_2_p._2013

Note that the militaristic football of the Cold War, post World War II, high military spending society, comes in an exceptional period in American history.  Nothing else quite like it in American history, when America has become the empire, the Roman Empire of the modern day era.  Football players are the modern equivalent of the gratuitous violence of the Roman gladiators.  An estimated 70% of pro football players feel pain with that first step out of bed on Monday morning.  60% of pro football players have had concussions and 15% have had five or more brain concussions in their career.  Injury report lists every week are standard and players talk of playing through the pain.

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640

bobreuschlein@gmail.com

http://www.wortfm.org/friday-december-20-2013/ for radio audio (see bottom of listing)

Healthcare and Empire

Crime, corruption, inefficiency, and waste are all results of the self destructive tendencies of empire.  Part of the reason we have the most expensive healthcare in the world with very poor results, compared to other developed countries, is our extremely militarized economy and culture, and the general stagnation that goes with empire has helped to prevent modernization.
Eight correlations over .99 proves the centrality of military spending at this link:
https://www.academia.edu/4044456/Military_Dis-Economics_SUMMARY_High_Accuracy_13_1_p._2013

The Spirit Level book has the thesis of income inequality explaining the many differences among developed world nations in social and health statistics. America has the worst statistics in almost every category.  But empire, as expressed by long term military spending averages, has a much stronger pull on the leading Spirit Level statistics.  Comparing the nine average correlations with military spending and income inequality, military spending dominates .82 to .69.  So the ten worst effects of empire are mostly economic and health related and are, in order, lack of social mobility, then low manufacturing productivity, high prisoners, high teen births, high homicides, high work hours, high mental illness, high income inequality, low press freedom on national security issues, and high obesity. https://www.academia.edu/4273814/Health_and_Empire_6_ppt._1_p._2013

It’s that sinking feeling we all have that America isn’t working out like it used to.  For a generation after World War II we still had the American Dream mostly intact.  Then they killed the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King and we started our long downhill slide deeper and deeper into a state of empire and empire decline.  Soon Nixon resigned and the one time spokesperson for the number one nuclear weapons contractor Ronald Reagan took the solar panels off the White House, over-built the military, cut taxes on the rich by 60%, busted the unions, and here we are today:  locked in the new feudalism, a land of 99% serfs dominated by top 1% lords.

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640

bobreuschlein@gmail.com

http://www.wortfm.org/wednesday-december-18-2013/ for radio audio after Wednesday the 18th (see bottom of listing)

Why Were Murder and Crime Cut in Half in the Nineties?

Last December an episode of the Chris Hayes show was dealing with the usual issues of guns and crime.  Suddenly, Chris stated no one knows why crime suddenly dropped in the nineties.  The criminologists present silently concurred with that statement.

The main reason murder and crime were cut in half in the nineties is that military spending was also cut in half in the nineties. What is the correlation between military spending and murder and crime rates among the leading developed countries?  It’s .996. That’s a perfect one if you round to two decimal places.  The murder rates in America are about six times as high as the murder rates in Japan, about twice as high as the murder rates in Europe.  The low military spending society, Japan, has the lowest crime.   Europe has medium levels of military spending and crime.  The high military spending society, America, has high levels of crime.  If you were to compare the 28 Northern states with the 22 Southern states, the South has twice the murder crime and military spending levels of the North.

I have three lines of logic.  One, the higher the military spending the lower the economic growth, which creates high levels of frustration that manifest in high levels of murder and crime.  Two, treating whole societies as enemies reduces the capacity to empathize with others.  This attitude of state sanctioned depersonalization comes home to roost domestically.  Prisoner therapy often consists of talk to victims to learn what crime has done to others in an attempt to create the missing empathy. Third, the military trains people to kill quickly and mercilessly.  When millions of these trainees are let loose in society, maybe 98% can adjust, but the 2% that are deviant from social norms can wreak havoc on a society.  A bar fight can easily escalate to a murder.

I use long term averages to compute the military spending levels of a nation because it takes two decades to raise a child to adulthood.  Thus the changing rates occur over a period of time as children are less exposed to the violence of militarism.  Over the centuries, there is evidence that whole societies lower their violence levels.  For example, the four hundred year old societies of New England, Virginia, Britain, and France show a 93% correlation with crime but at a level of 40% compared to the 150 year old societies like Italy, Germany, Sweden, Japan, and the United States that form the 99% correlation. Thus the crime rate is not only proportional to the military spending rate of an emerging generation it is inversely proportional to the approximate longevity of that whole society. https://www.academia.edu/4862977/Crime_and_the_Military_1999_3p._1989info
http://www.realeconomy.com/crime.htm more info

http://www.wortfm.org/wednesday-december-11-2013/ for radio audio on Wednesday (see bottom of listing)

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640

bobreuschlein@gmail.com

Climate Economics: Much More than Costs & Disasters

What I call Flat Earth economics is the current level of primitive thinking about climate change and the economy.  The focus is all on costs of adapting to a low carbon lifestyle and various disasters that can occur with climate change.  This ignores the basic nature of how heating and cooling affect human beings, which turns out to be the dominant real economy effect on economics.

The first industrial engineer, Frederick Taylor, discovered in circa 1896 that laying railroad track was best done at a temperature of 64 degrees Fahrenheit.  Above that level, people naturally slow down in the heat, just like we do on a tropical beach.  I first learned about Taylor working on my MBA.  Later as a dry cleaning executive I learned of the terrible hot summer conditions in that industry.  The NASA (dry cleaners trade association) found that at a comfortable heat of 72 degrees there is no change in productivity, but at 74 degrees productivity drops 3%, and at 85 degrees it drops 18%.  At 95 degrees Fahrenheit productivity drops 37%.  Thus economic activity will drop as the temperature rises.

A glance around the world and temperature obviously affects the apparent advantage temperate zone economies have long had over tropical economies.  Even within the temperate zone, the cooler countries of Europe clearly have stronger economies that the Mediterranean countries, with the cool Scandinavian countries and cold mountainous Switzerland leading the way.  Likewise, the Northern States have long had an advantage over the Southern States in America.  So latitude and altitude affect economics.

When I broke down the US economic growth rate change versus temperature change by five year periods from 1895 to 1988, in 15 of 18 cases, when the temperature cooled the economy strengthened, and when the temperature increased the economy decreased.  The clearest example is also the biggest, as the 95 year study peaked in temperature increase from the late twenties to the early thirties, exactly when the Great Depression occurred.

Investments grow about 6% more in the coldest six months than the warmest six months in the US the last twenty years, and this effect was statistically significant in every stock market in the world in a peer reviewed 2002 study.

The International Panel on Climate Change has nothing in their report about any of these discoveries first connected to the economy by Dr. Robert Reuschlein twenty two years ago in his “Natural Global Warming” paper May 7, 1991 and more extensively in his Real Economics 1999 text.  This four paragraph proof will stand the test of time and become the standard way of looking at long term economic changes someday.

http://www.wortfm.org/wednesday-december-4-2013/ for audio at bottom of page.

https://www.academia.edu/4862993/Climate_and_the_Economy_5_p._1999 for more info. bobreuschlein@gmail.com

Dr. Peace, Dr. Bob Reuschlein, www.realeconomy.com 608-230-6640