Vukcevic Solar Polar Field Strength Predictive Formula
Over on WUWT there is an article about NASA tying again to explain sunspot funk. In that article, Vukcevic posts another of his tiny little comments that are almost entirely just a link.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/02/nasa-will-try-to-explain-the-missing-sunspots/#comment-611264
says:
Sunspots have not gone missing, they are not there because the sun is taking its well deserved break.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
What is at the other end of that link is the graph at the top of this posting.
I’ve put it here just so I can look at it frequently and without needing to find it on WUWT or in the thousand and one things that are in my ‘bookmarks’ file.
Why?
Because he’s found or made a very useful tool. Want to know what will be happening to the sun (and from that, to the weather and to social order) in 10 or 20 years? Consult the graph. Solar sloth and funk to continue and become even deeper through 2030 at least. In 2024 when it’s sitting on the zero line, expect some pretty low solar flux and very low UV levels (and with that, colder times, more crop failures, and really cranky people with low Vit-D levels leading to more Seasonal Affective Disorder world wide and in all seasons).
Speculative? No mechanism? Lack of causality? I suppose so… but I’ll take an R-squared of 0.93 any day over anything NASA has given us in the last decade or two. In stock and commodity trading, there are a lot of things that you use because they work, not because anyone can show you the mechanism. I’m “good with that”.
These Guys Too
Here is a paper that looks at it from a mechanistic point of view and also is predicting a Solar Grand Minimum:
http://journalofcosmology.com/ClimateChange111.html
We summarize recent findings about periodicities in the solar tachocline and their physical interpretation. These lead us to conclude that solar variability is presently entering into a long Grand Minimum, this being an episode of very low solar activity, not shorter than a century. A consequence is an improvement of our earlier forecast of the strength at maximum of the present Schwabe cycle (#24). The maximum will be late (2013.5), with a sunspot number as low as 55.
So what we’ve got now is only the start, and we’re headed into a long period of solar sloth that ought to yield cooling, IMHO. Welcome to Bond Event Zero (c)… Where nations fall, crops fail, the world grows cold, Expect droughts in Africa and too much cold and rain in Europe. Russian Winters to be worse than seen in a hundred years, and if a volcano or two blows it’s top (that also ought to happen) expect snow in New England in summer.
The good news is that we’ve got about a decade to prepare before the worst of it gets here. The bad news is that we’re not preparing, our “leaders” are doing exactly the wrong things.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Mother Nature’s “Cattle Prod” – Weather (aka Climate)
Funny thing, nothing get’s lazy shiftless people to get up off their dead a$$ and move like an old fashioned change in the weather. When the going gets tough the tough get going (the weak and senile are left behind). Be it Global Warming or Global Cooling, people are people; always have been, may always be so, if they’re lucky.
The Length of Day seems to be following the same pattern….
So its might be interesting to review this 2007 article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/07/california-climate-pdo-lod-and-sunspot-departure/
Keep translating the science (Vukcevic is always difficult for me and I know his views are not popular) and warning us to use the next 10 years wisely…for our good survival. It seems to me we have two things to focus on during this decade:
1. Develop (reasonably re pollution) every natural energy resource along with necessary “refining” and “delivery” systems. We might even have to give up some of our “wilderness” areas, something I am reluctant to do. However, I believe that a reasonable discussion can be had with a quid pro quo. You give up “wilderness” and we (corps) give you xxx at completion of xxx. (Of course, success at this effort requires that we get our fiscal house in order.)
2. Develop alternatives to drought (as well as prepare for floods). Water is the most important natural resource. No part of this globe should be subject to killing drought as the climate shifts when 70% of the surface is water. California should (must) become a leader in this effort. Given the current regime’s approach to water — limit its use as much as possible, kill CA economy — we must view them as “the enemy” to reasonable existence during a cold period.
Abundance is the watchword. No “planned economy” can ever manage the creativity and resourcefulness necessary for abundance.
Our “leaders” are all planning for hot, not cold.
But in ten years time, never mind 20/30/40 they will not be leaders.
But the planning will still be needed, the same planning that should have been done 10 years ago.
I’m very afraid (not for me but my children) that it will be wrong, too little and too late.
Mr. Smith
You were absolutely correct. Rain patterns are more regional than global phenomena.
I took another look at the Oxfordshire records, and an unusual 40+ year pattern emerged. Most interesting bit about it that the periods 1920 -1960 and 1960-2000 match very closely (Rsq = 0.73). There is no correlation with the CETs or the AMO. Very odd ?!
Have to think about that one.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ORR.htm (see graphs 2 & 3)
E. M., I like your reasoning of the bond event.
Not only this article but also the Dead Sea article.
It has the similar fresh approach as your CO2 effect analysis described in your Frostbite falls article last January.
It would be nice to see if we can find sufficient dated volcanic eruptions and see if there is a pattern too.
I also like your reference to a paper of Prof. C. de Jager. I think highly about Professor de Jager as I had the opportunity to attend several lectures he held during the eighties. He is a great thinker. I receive his mail alerts any time he has something new to report and despite his age he’s still a very busy man.
I followed John Daly blog and the Landscheidt papers and later Svensmark Vukcevic and Geoff Sharp, a.o. for a long time now and I sure think you guy’s are on to something.
I am also a big fan of Joe Bastardi and Joseph D’Aleo
weather analysis and I underwrite Bastardi’s tripple crown of cooling theory. (Solar Minimum, Negative Ocean Cycles and Volcanic Eruptions = cooling)
I already posted several reports which link solar minimum periods with increased seismic and volcanic activity.
The theory (also underlined by David Archibald and Prof. Dr. Landscheidt) that we are currently entering a new Maunder Minimum due to a coincidence of solar minimum and several long term cycles like the bond cycle events is a most fascinating view which begs for more research and observation.
So thanks for this article and keep up the good work.
And y’ all expect who to do what?
Dial 1-800-Dream-on
@ John F. Hultquist
Dial M for Maunder Minimum
Came across this graph on the same WUWT thread – scared the proverbial out of me…
Came across this some time ago – seems to fit well with the idea we’re in for another cold climate regime…
1410-1500 cold – Low Solar Activity(LSA?)-(Sporer minimum)
1510-1600 warm – High Solar Activity(HSA?)
1610-1700 cold – (LSA) (Maunder minimum)
1710-1800 warm – (HSA)
1810-1900 cold – (LSA) (Dalton minimum)
1910-2000 warm – (HSA)
2010-2100 (cold???) – (LSA???)
Is there a 66 year cycle in temperature?
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/03/is-there-66-year-cycle-in-temperatures.html
The really bad news is that I am 58 and have a reasonable chance of living until the middle of this. Gotta get back into the canyons on my motorcycle!!
Hi Kuhnkat
You and me both!
Chief
So for investing, that would be the Brits? Seems to me they understand the cold AND they know sheep and wool! No better way to truly stay warm than wool? How do you go about investing in sheep stocks?
@Larry Geiger:
I you think I’m going to say ANYTHING about my favorite sheep or how best to utilize them for personal gain, and certainly anything at all about the joys of wool, well, think again… I’m not going NEAR that topic.
(I’m a graduate of an Ag college where one of the self depricating very non-PC jokes was “UC Davis, where the men are MEN and the sheep are Scared!”… so yeah, I’m a bit “sensitive” about sheep… the topic of sheep, not the actual sheeps…. damn it… see what you’ve got me into? I mean discussing?…)
@R de Haan:
Well, I’m glad there are some bits that don’t rub you the wrong way… At any rate, I’m expecting cold and crop issues.
The “short form” investment direction would be agribusiness and crops along with ‘unconventional oil’ plays. My favorites being Canadian tar sands (IMO) and things like MON MOS POT etc. I’ll be covering this more in the Friday WSW now that The Fed is out of the way as an issue.
@Vukcevic:
Looking forward to the results of your cogitations… BTW, you might want to look at the most recent posting:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/of-time-and-temperatures/
for some ideas on where to look for precipitation patterns.
To me, Vukcevic 0.93 r-squared chart has one problem. He bases his regression on data from 1967 to 2010. There isn’t any data shown before 1960. If he extrapolates forward 20 years, he should go back 20 years. I would suspect his oscillations before 1960 would be much bigger.
All Vukcevic can say is that the amplitude in 2000-2010 period is about half the 1980-1990 amplitude. I am not saying that solar cycle is not different now, I am just saying prediction is difficult to validate with limited data.
@mddwave:
He has longer charts of sunspots too (for hundreds of years) I just didn’t want to filtch too much of his stuff in one go ;-)
They show the same pattern. Of course, now that I want to put in the link to the ssn graph I can’t find it…
Ah, here it is:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7.htm
You can see the very good match to sunspots for, well, forever. To the extent sunspots and solar flux are related, the above flux graph is an expansion of this one toward the end / future. I think the reason he does not go back further in time on the flux graph is that is all the flux data there is…
mddwave:
Polar field back extrapolation, not 20 but 50 years:
and the long term envelope :
Additional note:
polar field leads the next sunspot cycle by anything between 3-8 years.
….the sun is taking its well deserved break.
The Sun at the E.R.!
What if the focus of the intergalactic Birkeland current, the Sun, the one what we know now, changes to another focus; as it may have happened in the past?:
http://www.holoscience.com/views/view_other.htm
Remember the Mayan Sun´s epochs, Velikovsky´s theories,etc?
A lot of fun ahead! :-)
If we consider the universal Law of the Octave, here it is what we get, for the Size of that solid focus:
Ratio Do/Fa Wavelength:0.664556962
Earth Diameter: 12756.32 km
Sun´s Diameter: 8477.30 km
Ratio Do/Fa Frequency:1.497938617
Earth´s Frequency:1.15741E-05
Sun´s Frequency:1.73373E-05
@ Adolfo Giurfa
Mmmm… perhaps the handful of survivors had red hair.
E.M.Smith
@R de Haan:
“Well, I’m glad there are some bits that don’t rub you the wrong way…”
E. M., No rub the wrong way, just small difference in opinion probably based on your remark about Europe and me stating I can’t speak for Europe, only from the perspective of my own country!
The only aspect really is not a difference in views but a difference in attitude in regard of the USA playing the role of ‘global police man’.
Obama states US to retreat form the world theatre and to be seen as a normal country with limitations.
At the same time he screwing up everything.
Obama’s attitude is bad timing.
As the majority of Americans concur with his opinion we’re dead.
That’s what triggered my response.
Europe on a political level and military level is a mess.
It was a mess when the Dutch were send in to defend the Srebrenica Enclave without heavy arms because that would upset the Serbs.
The French would take care of close Air Support but when it was needed the French didn’t show up and the Srbenica Enclave was overrun by the Serbs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre
Now we have this, from a military point of view, small disaster in Libya with the failed evacuation resulting in hostage taking.
Small from a military perspective but ‘gigantic’ from a diplomatic perspective.
Here in Europe we have Jimmy Carters all over the place and it’s if they compete who will go into the history books as the most incompetent.
“At any rate, I’m expecting cold and crop issues”.
I agree with you.
“The “short form” investment direction would be agribusiness and crops along with ‘unconventional oil’ plays. My favorites being Canadian tar sands (IMO) and things like MON MOS POT etc. I’ll be covering this more in the Friday WSW now that The Fed is out of the way as an issue”.
I agree with that too.
1. What do you think about uranium?
2. Are you familiar with Brian Hicks?
‘Speculative? No mechanism? Lack of causality?’
I had another exchange with Dr. Svalgaard about it. I posted my reply on WUWT, but it got lost in the system, it may surface eventually, but here is copy describing possible mechanism (it is a bit long, worth a read for those who may be interested):
V: Btw. my polar field formula http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
is far superior solution to your 1/1000 theory.
L.S.: The amount of polar flux is not theory, but is an observed quantity.
As far as I know, you have no understanding or explanation of how your formula might work.
…..explanation of how above formula might work.
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
Amount of energy in the sun’s surface is so huge, that unless one of these planets plunged into the sun directly, would hardly make any difference.
It is likely to be the other way around, and I was suggesting it for some time now.
It is the change in the energy outflow (not inflow) from the sun, that makes planetary connection work!
I could forward an electric analogy, but that may not be wise, so consider this:
an ordinary magnet sitting on your desk hardly makes any difference to surrounding area (after few short microseconds after being placed there). Bring in its proximity a conductor or ferromagnetic substance than its presence will manifest itself, not only on that object, but influence of that object on the magnet itself , through the magnetic field lines connecting two; the magnet may even physically move.
How does this translate to the solar system?
Sun radiates electro-magnetic energy in huge amounts continuously. Solar wind, flares (x-rays), coronal holes, CMEs, provide energy moving ahead towards edge of the heliosphere and not much happens.
Now bring in huge magnetosphere and what is the effect:
L.S. : NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]. The solar magnetic field and the Earth’s (Jupiter and Saturn too, my insertion:)magnetic field can reconnect if their geometry is right. The reconnected field lines are then stretched down the geomagnetic tail by the solar wind. This stores magnetic energy in the tail. The tail is unstable [flaps around] and tail field lines can reconnect and ‘snap’ back towards to earth restoring the magnetic field to what it was before. That rapidly changing magnetic field induces an electric field that accelerates whatever particles are present in the tail, resulting in the charges precipitating in the ionosphere [a la Birkeland’s discharges] exciting the atoms of the air to glow as the bright aurorae. ; do remember the magnetic field is connected to the Sun all the time.
So what is happening here:
there is a ‘magnetic short circuit’ in the path, but Dr.S will maysay ‘that this can’t reflect back to the solar surface through magnetic field lines’, of course it can: NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]
and remember the above example: you can move magnet on your table, by bringing peace of iron, through magnetic field lines connecting two.
Well, in this case the sun does not move, but its surface magnetic configuration reacts to the presence of a short circuited megnetic lines by a magnetosphere via: …the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is] , This reaction is manifested in change in the velocity of meridional flow. This is a surface, or at best, shallow effect.
L.S. :Schatten’s theory is one of the explanations of the solar cycle. It is still as good as any, perhaps better. Recent work by Brandenburg et al. discuss their work “in the context of a distributed solar dynamo where active regions and sunspots might be rather shallow phenomena” arXiv:0910.1835
Is there any theoretical work that may support above outlined hypothesis reflected in the formula?
Not exactly, but there are two very important studies on meridional flow relationship to the polar fields formation from:
1. Wang , Lean , and Sheeley – Hulburt Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/577/1/L53/fulltext
2.. Solanki, Baumann, Schmitt, Schüssler – Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Germany
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2004/42/aa1024/aa1024.right.html
Their studies produce waveforms which highly correlate to the results demonstrated in my formula as you can see here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC17.htm
That is how my formula on polar fields works.
There you have it.
@vukcevic
Put your magnetic probe (say it is like a round magnetite ball) in a near vacuum tube, then connect the power: You will have a round shining light surrounding your small probe (provided it is properly connected to the circuit), then approach a magnet or an electrified coil (Jupiter) to the tube, near your probe: Its light (plasma) will be affected.
Dr.S thinks magnets can exist WITHOUT electricity (or jumping charges), and this is not true, on the contrary: Magnets are manufactured using certain elements that share the property of having the oxidation states of +2 and +3 (Iron, nickel,etc), as is the case with magnetite: A mixture of FeO and Fe2O3, where, as a consequence of the imbalance of oxidation states, FeO tries to achieve “rest” by oxidizing to Fe2O3, and does this by reducing Fe2O3 to FeO, which, again, tries the same.
However a “shock” of external energy is needed to start all this process: electricity again (which, in turn, is generated by moving magnets by the “force” of, say, a fall of water=gravity=force. (*)
Then we must ask ourselves: Which one is first, the chicken or the egg?
In order to solve the problem of entropy we should have to invent a kind of apparatuses which can operate, at least for a while, negentropically, increasing frequencies, i.e. energy. These apparatuses are called “living beings” and they have the ability of overcoming entropy by using a very clever “trick”: Before falling in entopy they REPRODUCE themselves, making new apparatuses which will fight entropy in a new cycle, replacing “casualties” occuring in the battlefield of energy.
Among these apparatuses, there are some, that use also to fulfill this role, the element Iron, by oxidizing the iron contained in their blood from the Fe+2 state to the Fe+3 state, and vice versa..these apparatuses are called “humans” by some.
(*)Anyone can notice that if we can “start” a magnet with energy=electricity, that magnet is really a kind of a solid “battery” of such energy.
See this:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm
http://survive2012.com/news/2011/03/laacher-see.html
…and in the mean-time A new fissure eruption has begun at Kilauea volcano in Hawaii – must be the E. M. Smith effect!
Most folks like the Geologic Time Perspective. They think if an area (or even the whole world) has had a given level of volcanoes for 1000 years (or even 10,000 years) that is “the new normal” and things will stay that way from now to ‘forever’ (in their mind).
The reality is that the globe is not significantly different now than it was 1 Million years ago, or even 10 Million years. You must measure in Billions to get a real change of character pattern.
So anything that happened in the last few million years can easily happen again when it comes to volcanoes and quakes and asteroid strikes.
Ice ages, rift erruptions in rift valleys, Iceland nuking Europe, large shield erruptions, the works.
(IMHO, the Siberian Shield erruptions are a very unlikely and uncommon event, but nothing prevents something like them again. Perhaps when the African Rift Valley splits open… )
FWIW, I grew up next to the Sutter Buttes. The worlds smallest “mountain range” and formed about 1.5 million years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutter_Buttes
with a nice picture too…
So having spent many days of my youth wandering around there, and having been told repeatedly that the fact was that this Out Of Place Volcano was dead dead dead and nothing would ever come of it…. I was interested in geology.
The reality is more that “it was an odd Duck” and “only if something strange happened again could it happen again”… but nothing prevents whatever happened 1.5 million years ago from happening again… In geologic time that was “only yesterday”…
So we are one subduction “odd bit” away from sprouting an active volcano smack dab in the Central Valley of California flat farm land for 100 miles in all directions and not anywhere near the big mountain ranges…. Kind of like Mexico sometimes pops a new ‘odd duck’ volcano in a corn field…
http://www.mexonline.com/paricutinvolcano.htm
but that was back in 1943 and nothing like that could ever happen again, it’s just so long ago ;-) /sarcoff>
BTW, that the Christchurch peninsula is volcanic and fairly young too (Only 8 million years per: )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banks_Peninsula
says to me that they could errupt again if the planet felt like it… All it takes is a shift of what subducts where. Which edge of the plates move under what and when.
IIRC, Yellowstone is on about a 0.7 Million Year cycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera
Though every couple of million years it’s about “one large caldera” further over:
If you are thinking “Volcanoes” you really do need to think in millions of years to see the whole pattern…
So if you live next to any volcano that has had any erruptive event in the last 1,000,000 years, IMHO, it could happen again. Not likely at all in any one lifetime, but…
“but nothing prevents whatever happened 1.5 million years ago from happening again… In geologic time that was “only yesterday”… ”
That isn’t exactly true. Just “yesterday” in geological time, the San Andreas fault system cut across what was left of the subducting mass and the Pacific plate began moving North. Actually, this happened within the past few tens of thousands of years.
The material that was subducting under the North American plate providing the “fuel” for that volcano is now sliding North and not subducting. Lassen and Shasta might have a couple more spurts left in them but not much as the magma under those areas begins to cool and no new material is subducted under them to replace what gets erupted.
There is always a chance that subduction could start again should the SAF become completely locked and the NA plate continues its counter-clockwise rotation but the speed at which the Pacific plate is now subducting up North under the Aleutian arc means that is really not likely to happen. If the SAF locks, a new break will simply appear somewhere else. That plate is moving too fast for a locked SAF to put the brakes on the whole thing.
@George:
And of course, things can never change again over a couple of millions of years… what happened “within the past few tens of thousands of years” is “the new normal”… gee, where have I heard that before ;-)
Hi Chiefio,
Haven’t commented in a long time and hope this one is not too late. Skimmed some of your stuff on gold-fish, carp, and left/right distinctions – seems like you have a real sensitivity there, – struggling with challenges to a cherished paradigm maybe?
Also noted the insistance on facts, followed by a very non-factual opinion on what taxes are that IMO is nonsense. So much for facts. I think GBShaw said that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. Never really understood whether he meant that little minds can’t maintain consistency, or only little minds expect consistency. Whatever, it is quite a rant.
However that is not the point of replying. I like your speculation on cycles or periodicities, obviously because it reenforces my own ideas. (We do agree on some things). You might be interested in a longish bit I did on solar system periodicities, and a shorter one I did on an oversimplified projection of cycles forward that can be found at http://www.agwnot.blogspot.com. It seems to me that the 60 year cycle is obvious and has a pretty good explanation. The 179 year cycle is the Jose cycle, that has been pretty well documented. The ca 360 year cycle is the repeated pattern of deep grand minima (DGM) every 33 solar cycles. Shallow grand minima and deep grand minima seem to alternate at every 13 and 20 cycles. 4 DGM are your ca 1450 year cycle, but why is a mystery. The 360 year period seems to be related to Uranus as illustrated on Geoff Sharp’s blog, which produces high angular momentum peaks at intervals of 40, 40 and 100 years. I have also speculated on why those peaks occur at agwnot, but Geoff doesn’t agree, – he is hung up on the 172 year saturn jupiter conjunction. If my speculation makes any sense, what else lines up every second Uranus orbit to cause the DGM?
You are a better and more dogged analyst than I am so I would be very interested in your response to the three postings at agwnot, – Uranus, periodicities, and the oversimple model.
It sure looks to me that we are into the cold side of a cycle that will get pretty nasty, and will be colder than the last 30 years expectations for maybe 80 years. then if my simple model is right we have another nice long warm period before tsreallyhtf. BTW – I think the ca 1100 year cycle is more obvious than a 1450 year cycle, and I sure agree with you on the uncertainties of dating past events.
Cheers, Murray
@ Murray “I think GBShaw said that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Sometimes a small bit of my youth’s education bubbles to the surface… I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the actual quote (though often given as you said) is “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
It makes a lot more sense with that “foolish” included.
@Murry Duffin:
That discussion probably belongs under the “Goldfish Comments” thread rather than here, as folks won’t find it here if they are looking at that, there.
But to answer your points:
Not a cherrished paradigm, a recent realization that “fixed” an awful lot of “non-fit” loose ends. As the use of “left” and “right” ARE strongly embedded in our culture, it will take significant effort to get folks to “get over that”.
For close to 30? years I’ve tried to get the assertions about “left” and “right” to fit in a decent framework. It always failed. Once you realize it’s a rubber ruler and has has oxymorons over time, you can untangle the stuff and things then DO fit in organized patterns.
But the facts are very clear: The terms come from the French Revolution. Stalin redifined them to suit his goal of putting Nazi Germany outside the pale of proper Global Communist Socialism (and it worked wonderfully). That also broke the utility of the trems for well reasoned thought (that has also worked beatifully in that we’ve got a generation or two who get seduced by it; and it’s still used to attain his propaganda goal, long after both empires and both dictators are dead). The end result is that, litterally, right is left and Nazi Socialists are in the same bucket as Kings, The Church, and Republicans (French form) all of which they despised (and most of which despise each other).
This leads to endless confounding of thought. It needs to be fixed, and it can NOT be allowed to pass unchallenged or it will continue to dominate (and break) thought. It is used as a foundation stone of modern propaganda as well, and often by folks who don’t even realize it. So, no quarter to be given on the need to fix that point (even though it will take generations, if ever, to do so.)
Oh, and if you don’t think taxes are theft extracted by force, just call up the IRS or the Crown (depending on where you live) and announce that you won’t be paying any for the next few years….
Taxes are not a voluntary system.
And that is a fact.
See Jason Calley’s point. Consistency Checks are a very important part of keeping a “tidy mind”. They find error more than anything else, IMHO. Where “small minds” go off the rails is in presuming things MUST be consistent. They don’t. The hard bit is to watch for the inconsistencies (that usually indicate something is wrong…) but realize that sometimes they mean “something new, true, and interesting is to be found here”; to see the “Dig Here!” moments.
So a “foolish consistency” would find taxation the same as theft (forcible removal of personal property against my will) and find it immoral at best. I find it a “lesser evil” in that we need some kind of government (but it’s still theft). That is not a “foolish consistency”, that is recognizing the base truth of things, but also seeing that there is an exception to the rule that “all theft is illegal and / or evil”.
It’s at that point that the “always consistent” folks blow a gasket as it can’t be both evil (theft) and good (government needed). You find a lot of those folks in the fringes of some movements …. anarchists, for example.
I’ll take a look at your stuff. It sounds like if fits the physics better than the S-J stuff. (Angular momentum increases with Radius, so “small but futher out” has more “punch”…)
Right now I’m up to my eyeballs in the Japan thing… so it may be a day or two.
My suspicion is that there is some quasi periodic swap between a 1400 ish year cycle and a 1000 ish year cycle that is accounted for as ‘gaps’ in the D-O and Bond Event record, but is really a direct consequence of the “dirver” having a different “ripple” then. I tried a fit to the J-S stuff, and it’s missing something. (Thus my plea for someone really into that stuff to point the way).
If adding in U-N and maybe even P-Xena for really long cycles ‘does the trick’ it would be way cool.
I’ve also wondered why all the Trojan asteroids are left out of things. They are some very significant percentage of the mass of Jupiter so ought to have impact too… (probably in dampening the strength of the J AM as they are not at the orbital extreme points of Ap-Per when Jupiter is… effectively, J ought to be treated as a non-point-source mass of about 1.5 x present mass, but spread over a 120 degree arc…)
At any rate, I think it’s looking pretty clear that “stuff out there” does impact “happenings down here”; it’s just sorting out the how and when that’s the hard bits ;-)
@Murry Duffin:
Well, I tried to do time management ;-) but I read your blog anyway …
I posted this in a comment there, but I’m putting it here, too:
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1850_1899.htm
has your “missing” cool period in 1850…
And I think you are on to something, but I can’t figure out just why it works ;-)
Thanks for the comments. My big disagreement with you is the equating of taxes to theft. I see taxes as a necessary and usually fair fee for the benefits I receive from society through the mechanism of government. As the wealthy benefit more, frequently through luck or inheritance rather than talent or contribution, for me it is fair that the wealthy pay more. I have the good fortune to have above average intelligence, both intellectual and emotional, and I have worked industriously throughout my life, and have more wealth than average, and with that wealth I can enjoy more of the benefits available, so I am happy to pay a higher tax.
The IRS does more of a job of providing an orderly tax collection mechanism, than it does of extracting by force. I once owned a business brokerage for a few years, and I can assure you that small businees, which at that time made up about 35% of the US economy, paid less than 20% of what they should have. At one point I had 230 listings, of which only 2 did not keep two sets of books, and an astonishing number paid no tax at all.
If the gov’t plugged a fwe idiotic big business tax loopholes, and if the IRS really enforced tax collection rather than simply facilitating collection, we would have no deficit and no need to raise taxes.
As to the need for and benefits of government, you might want to read Schumpeter.
Some day I will write up a thesis that is floating around in my head to explain the differences in mentality and mentation between the individualistic beggar thy neighbor right and the social caring left. I do believe there is a wide spectrum that is associated with other mental characteristics, and I find myself maybe just a tad to the left of center of that spectrum, though as a young man I was to the right.
I like the story of the little boy who was selling the puppies, and when asked about their political persuasion told the potential customer they were Republicans. A couple of weeks later he responded to the same questioner that they were Democrats, and when asked why the change replied that their eyes had opened. As my life has progressed, my eyes have opened more.
I llook forward to your inputs on the model and regularities material. Also thanks for the url to the cold 1850s. I had seen that before but it didn’t register. I think the cold in my unmodified composite was quite a bit worse than even that material would suggest, but maybe I erased to much.
Cheers, Murray
While that is certainly true, we now face a different situation. We face a situation where people are, in effect, voting themselves money. 35% of all personal income in this country now comes from the government in the form of a check.
Across this country you have governments stopping the performance of operations that we normally equate with the business of government in order to maintain promised payments to individuals. Lavish pensions in 6 figures for life combined with free medical care are paid at the expense of schools and parks and roads and bridges.
Politicians have exchanged huge sums of political campaign money for promises to the labor organizations of government workers. Now the time has come to pay those promises as those workers begin to retire. We have a federal government that finds it easier to treat the symptoms of unemployment by simply sending a check than to create an environment where there is greater public sector employment.
What is happening is the government is now stealing from the taxpayers at the point of a gun. And if you think “at the point of a gun” is an exaggeration, try refusing to pay your taxes for a while and see how long it is before the people with the guns come to take away your house and other possessions.
I have no problem with building and maintaining infrastructure. I have no problem with even a temporary hand up in a bad situation. I have a HUGE problem with people getting payments for life that get raises every year. Every time a state retiree gets a cost of living raise, I have to take a cut to pay for it.
Government is at this point stealing from the people.
35% of all personal income in this country now comes from the government in the form of a check.
George, can you provide some reference to support that claim? Seems very doubtful to me. Based on fed. gov’t employment and pay level statistics, fed gov’t workers get about 4 % of the total pay and benefits in the country. State and local are unlikely to bring that above 10%. And they all pay taxes too. Average pay to gov’t employess seems high vs the private sector , but the private sector has become dominated by service jobs, and burger flippers don’t get much. That problem came about from offshoring, which is more a corporate problem than a gov’t problem.
Of course unemployment benefits add to the burden, but not another 25%.
@Murry Duffin:
Could you migrate some of this discussion toward more germain threads? It’s not got much to do with the Sun…
But to your points:
A “fee for benefits” is something I can choose. I choose NOT to pay the fee to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, for example. (Plan the trip to avoid the bridge).
I have no choice in Taxes. They are taken by force. (Again, if you don’t believe this, go tell the IRS you are not paying anything for the rest of your life and see what happens…)
For fees, I get a defined benefit for my payment (cross a bridge or stay in a park); for taxes this is often not true. (Gasoline taxes, for example, build the roads, so the benefit is somewhat nearer to me and it’s in that grey zone between tax and fees to some small extent).
For Taxes, “society at large” gets a benefit and that may or may not include me. (A person buying gasoline for the lawn mower is paying for a road the lawn mower will never see… And if you are about to launch into a ‘social goods of roads’ and “shared benefit to food delivery et.al.” don’t bother. They could be toll roads instead.)
So you’ve a tiny broken bit in thinking of taxes as fees. Not a big deal, but ‘untidy’…
Per proportional vs flat taxation: Completely orthogonal to everything else. Please, let’s not “go there: too much?…
I don’t care if it’s a flat tax, 90% proportional / Progressive on income, death tax, toenail tax: A Tax is A TAX is A TAX. Extraction of money from the population so that the powerful in government can spend it as they see fit, not how you see fit (and you get to hope the political system means more benefit flows your way than into their pockets. Be it under Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Monarchy, Dictatorship, or any of the other forms of human bondage we call government.)
Inefficiencies of the tax code and enforcement have far more to do with bribe money paid to the folks writing the laws to keep an army of lawyers, accountants, and clerks employed than anything to do with economics or economic theory. You don’t pay your “computed fair tax” and the govenment will come and take it out of your accounts ( via a bank levy) or will sell your property to collect it (via a tax lien). All the rest is distraction. It is by force.
I have never said Goverment is not needed. I am not an anarchist and: Please Note: THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME
Figure that out. Soon.
It is about definitions. It is about facts. It is NOT about my OPINION of the worth of government. ( For example, I’m 100% in favor of 100% public roads… AND the tax needed to support them. Oh, try filling up your tank and telling the attendant you will skip that volunatary gas tax part this time…)
“Right” and “Left” are broken terms.
Figure that out. Soon.
Attributing malicious character to either end of the spectrum is a path to misunderstanding. Please, don’t go there. There are evil “Conservatives” (The original French meaning: and the original King George) and evil “Progressives” (look up the history of what Wilson did to suppress personal liberties…)
I don’t know where George got his number, but it’s about right:
you will see fully 20% is “Social Security”. That 23 % of Medicare / Medicade goes right into “providers” pockets as their income. Then the Military is NOT all $Billion bombers, it’s a whole lot of families and folks on military pensions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
puts “procurement” at $140B out of $685 B. So add up the “housing” and the “personnel” ( $157.3 B) then add in the contractors on that gravy train ( “Operations and Maintenance” and “Construction” $307.2 B) and look at all those paychecks fly…
So we’re at about 55% of US budget and haven’t even taken a peek under the covers of “Discretionary” for all the pork ladled out to “Friends of Bill and Bush”…
Call it all of 3/4 as a first estimate. Presume the same holds for city and county and state (though they have higher labor components most of the time IIRC). On another occasion I demonstrated that total “government take” was about 1/2 of the economy (no, I’ll not do it again, here). So 1/2 x 3/4 is 3/8 or about %37.
Yeah, I’d say his number is about right…
Basically, what you are missing is this simple point:
Transfer Payments
Government taking money out of one pocket and handing to another as a paycheck.
It’s not just the Government workers, it’s the retired ones, their medical providers, the social security recipients, the folks who get their pension paid by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp (a quasi-gov’t agency), etc. ad nausium.
BTW, part of why I know this is because, of my immediate siblings and their spouses, 5/6 th of them get a goverment paycheck and none of them work, they are all retired…
So spend some time looking at the Transfer Payments and the “Entitlements” (even though the politicians try to put them “off budget”). For a depressing time: Look at their MANDATORY growth as we move forward and the Demographic Bomb goes off.
NO, don’t post your musing on them here. This is a thread best suited to solar issues.