Sunspots - The Real Cause of Higher Grain Prices | Tom McClellan

Tom McClellan (Jul 27, 2012) - Sunspots are a big driver for wheat prices. Various pundits are putting out stories blaming the drought in the plains states on global warming [...] A better explanation for the drought, and the ensuing spike in grain prices, is that this is all part of the normal 11-year sunspot cycle. But to find that relationship in the data is what the story is about. The first point to understand is that sunspot activity has now been scientifically linked to changes in cloud formation. When the sun is more active, the charge particles streaming out from sunspot activity help to sweep away cosmic rays that might otherwise hit earth's atmosphere, where they play a role in cloud formation. [see also HERE] 

 

Once you get past that more difficult scientific hurdle of understanding that cosmic rays and clouds are related, it is pretty easy to understand that less cloud formation is related to less precipitation, and thus poorer growing conditions for rain-irrigated crops. That is what we are seeing with this year's drought, and it has been pushing up grain prices accordingly. Looking across the last hundred years of price data on wheat, it can be difficult to see the relationship between the sunspot number and wheat prices. Part of this comes from the fact that there are other factors which sometimes act upon crop yields and thus grain pricing. But a big factor is that the units we use to measure wheat prices, i.e. US dollars, can vary themselves, causing the relationship with sunspots to sometimes be disguised by what the dollar itself is doing. 

 

If we look at the history of these two sets of data before the modern era of floating currency exchange rates, we can better see how they were correlated. This chart shows raw wheat prices, un-adjusted for the value of the dollar. The sunspot number data is shifted forward by 2 years to reveal that bottoms and tops in the sunspot number tend to be followed a couple of years later by bottoms and tops in wheat prices. This relationship got into some trouble in the middle part of the chart, when President Roosevelt's New Deal price fixing artificially inflated wheat prices. The intention in the 1930s was to benefit farmers by keeping wheat prices up.  

 

That effort switched during WWII to the government putting a cap on all prices, including wheat, to support the war effort. Rationing of food, fuel, and other items took over for market forces. Additional trouble came in the 1970s, when the Arab Oil Embargo pushed up oil prices in 1973-74, reducing acreage under cultivation. Then later in that decade, the rising value in the dollar pushed down the dollar price of most commodities compared to prices in other currencies. So using dollars to see the normal cyclical relationship in price data became problematic.

All of this explanation brings us (finally!) back to the lead chart above. In [the above] chart, I have adjusted the dollar price of wheat, multiplying it by the US Dollar Index, which was created back in 1971. This mathematical step produces a unit-less measure of the value of wheat by factoring out the dollar's movements. Doing this allows us to better see how the peaks and troughs in wheat prices have been related to the sunspot cycle. 

 

I want to emphasize again that the sunspot number is shifted forward in that chart by 2 years, to reveal its leading indication for how wheat prices will behave. The conclusion from this is that the upward move in the value of wheat right now is just following the swoop upward in the sunspot number that began in 2009. We should expect to see generally rising prices for wheat and other grains until about 2 years after the sunspot cycle has peaked, a peak which has not even happened yet.

On the Insignificance of Herschel’s Sunspot Correlation | Jeffrey J. Love

William Herschel started to examine the correlation of solar variation and solar cycle and climate. Over a period of 40 years (1779–1818), Herschel had regularly observed sunspots and their variations in number, form and size. Most of his observations took place in a period of low solar activity, the Dalton minimum, when sunspots were relatively few in number. This was one of the reasons why Herschel was not able to identify the standard 11-year period in solar activity. Herschel compared his observations with the series of wheat prices published by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.In 1801, Herschel reported his findings to the Royal Society and indicated five prolonged periods of few sunspots correlated with the price of wheat. Herschel's study was ridiculed by some of his contemporaries but did initiate further attempts to find a correlation. Later in the 19th century, William Stanley Jevons proposed the 11-year cycle with Herschel's basic idea of a correlation between the low amount of sunspots and lower yields explaining recurring booms and slumps in the economy. Herschel's speculation on a connection between sunspots and regional climate, using the market price of wheat as a proxy, continues to be cited. However, according to a study of Jeffrey J. Love of the USGS the evaluation is controversial and the significance of the correlation is doubted:

Jeffrey J. Love (Aug 27, 2013) - Our finding is that Herschel’s hypothesis is statistically insignificant [...] All of the data Herschel discussed in his 1801 paper were collected prior to 1717, during the Maunder Minimum and long before his paper was published. His identification of five durations of time with few sunspots and inflated wheat prices and five other durations that might have had sunspots and which had deflated prices [Herschel, 1801, pp. 313-316] would be an unlikely realization of binary statistics, but it is not clear whether or not Herschel was inspired to state his hypothesis after inspection of these data. Having said this, Herschel acknowledged that predictions based on his hypothesis “ought not be relied on by any one, with more confidence than the arguments ... may appear to deserve” [Herschel, 1801, p. 318]. Today, we have considerably more data than were available to Herschel; these were collected both before and after he stated his hypothesis, and they can be used for both retrospective and prospective testing.  For  London wheat  prices  both before 1801 and, separately, after 1802, binary significance probabilities and Pearson correlations and their effective probabilities are [...] indicative of statistical significance. While solar irradiance may affect global climate, from our analysis of data of the type considered by Herschel, we conclude that historical wheat prices are not demonstrably useful for inferring past sunspot numbers, and, conversely, sunspot numbers are not demonstrably useful for predicting future wheat prices.

Ancient Alphabets | The History of Writing

Wilhelm Gesenius (1851) - Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. Enlarge

The history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. By 2700 BCE Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names. However, although seemingly alphabetic in nature, the original Egyptian uniliterals were not a system and were never used by themselves to encode Egyptian speech. In the Middle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script is thought by some to have been developed in central Egypt around 1700 BCE for or by Semitic workers, but only one of these early writings has been deciphered and their exact nature remains open to interpretation. Based on letter appearances and names, it is believed to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs. This script eventually developed into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which in turn was refined into the Phoenician alphabet. It also developed into the South Arabian alphabet, from which the Ge'ez alphabet (an abugida) is descended. Note that the scripts mentioned above are not considered proper alphabets, as they all lack characters representing vowels. These early vowelless alphabets are called abjads, and still exist in scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac.

Phoenician was the first major phonemic script. In contrast to two other widely used writing systems at the time, Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, it contained only about two dozen distinct letters, making it a script simple enough for common traders to learn. Another advantage of Phoenician was that it could be used to write down many different languages, since it recorded words phonemically. The script was spread by the Phoenicians, whose Thalassocracy allowed the script to be spread across the Mediterranean. In Greece, the script was modified to add the vowels, giving rise to the first true alphabet. The Greeks took letters which did not represent sounds that existed in Greek, and changed them to represent the vowels. This marks the creation of a "true" alphabet, with both vowels and consonants as explicit symbols in a single script. In its early years, there were many variants of the Greek alphabet, a situation which caused many different alphabets to evolve from it. The Cumae form of the Greek alphabet was carried over by Greek colonists from Euboea to the Italian peninsula, where it gave rise to a variety of alphabets used to inscribe the Italic languages. One of these became the Latin alphabet, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire. Even after the fall of the Roman state, the alphabet survived in intellectual and religious works. It eventually became used for the descendant languages of Latin (the Romance languages) and then for the other languages of Europe (more HERE)

The Effect of Sunspot Activity on the Stock Market | Charles J. Collins

Charles J. Collins (1965) - Solar phenomena have been a source of scientific interest and investigation since Sir William Herschel, in 1801,found a correlation between sunspot activity and terrestrial phenomena [...] Modern science is giving considerable attention to solar phenomena in relation to disruption of the earth's magnetic field, to human health, and to weather, including rainfall, temperature, and cyclone frequency. The security analyst's interest is more directly concerned with the directly concerned with the effect of solar phenomena on business, and on speculation as evidenced by the ebb and flow of prices over our stock exchanges [This paper points] out one simple correlation of solar-stock market movements that will, fortunately, come to another test within the two or three years ahead. This is an apparent relationship between a recurrent phase of each sunspot cycle and an important stock market peak. The matter is of interest at this time for the reason that considerable attention is being given by students of the stock market as to when the broad advance that has been under way for a number of years is to reach a terminal point. This sunspot correlation, as discussed below, may throw some light on the subject. Briefly stated: It appears that an important market peak has been witnessed or directly anticipated when, in the course of each new sunspot cycle, the yearly mean of observed sunspot numbers has climbed above 50.

[...] Over the 94-year period under review, there were seven completed sunspot cycles, and it appears that an eighth was completed and a new cycle was started in 1964.During these eight cycles, not onlywas an important stock market peak concurrently witnessed (1881, 1892, 1916, 1936,1946, 1956)or directly anticipated (1906, 1929) by the above-50 count in sunspots, but, in four instances (1881, 1916, 1929, 1936), the designated peaks also marked the extreme or secular peaks for the entire sunspot cycle. The year 1890 seems an exception. In May of that year, the stock index reached its high of 5.62. In August 1892, the 5.62 level was again attained and, as concerns the yearly mean of the monthly stock indexes, the year 1892 peaked at 5.55, as compared with 5.27 for the year 1890 [...] In other words, in six instances, important stock market peaks and the sunspot climb above 50 came the same year, the two exceptions being 1906 and 1929. As to the 1906 exception, it will be noted, from the monthly range stock market chart, that the market peaked in January of that year, with December 1905 not far behind the January 1906 peak.

From a study of stock market history in relation to solar phenomena, a second theorem may be adduced: In each solar cycle, the largest stock market decline, in terms of percentage drop, comes after the sunspot number, on an annual basis, has climbed above 50. In the light of the foregoing observation, the 94 years of sunspot activity under review seems to occupy a rather narrow latitude for dogmatism. Thus, the preceding remarks should not betaken as a definitive prognosis of pending stock market behavior. Instead, they present a rather interesting correlation that has existed for a period of years between sunspot activity and major market peaks. Ergo, since the solar cycle is now at a point germane to this correlation, it seems worthwhile to present the previous relationship and await events, not without interest, of course, but mostly in the spirit of an enquiring attitude.

Originally printed in Financial Analysts Journal, November-December 1965; reprinted in Cycles Magazine in March 1966, and again in Cycles Magazine, Vol. 40, No. 3, September/October 1989]; editor's postscript of the 1989 reprint: "It is interesting to note the relation between above-50 crossingsand the stock market since 1965. In July 1966, the mean sunspot number moved above 50. The stock market shortly thereafter plunged in a major correction. In January 1978, the mean sunspot number again went above 50. The stock market, which had been in a downtrend, continued into a bottom after this date. In October 1987, the mean sunspot number went well above 50 to 60.~ and the 1987 crash followed. The mean sunspot number will next rise above 50 in about 1998."

The Best Seasonal Time of the Year | Feb 15 - May 10

Feb 15 - May 10 (Source: Nautilus Research)

First Quarter 2017 | Presidential Cycle + Seasonal Pattern + Decennial Cycle of the DJIA (HERE)

The Sunspot Cycle and Stocks | Robert R. Prechter and Peter Kendall

In the early 1930s, statisticians Felix Shaffner and Carlos Garcia-Mata set out to refute economic theories (by W. Stanley Jevons in 1867 and others) suggesting a correlation between the 10.3-year sunspot cycle and changes in agricultural and business activity. They commented, “Indeed this evidence was so striking that we thought it necessary to conduct further investigations to prove the resemblance accidental. In this we were unsuccessful.” Their research appeared in the November 1934 Quarterly Journal of Economics. Based on a study of five sunspot cycles back through 1875, Shaffner and Garcia-Mata found that industrial production repeatedly peaked before the number of sunspots did. With respect to the stock market, they also looked at the turns in 1929 and 1932 and found a high degree of correlation. Charles Collins, R.N. Elliott’s original Wall Street benefactor and one of the great stock market students of the time, extended the stock market correlation with a longer-term analysis in the 1960s. Collins related 93 years of sunspot data to the trends of U.S. stocks over the same span and concurred that important stock market peaks consistently precede sunspot cycle maximums. His findings, “An Inquiry into the Effect of Sunspot Activity on the Stock Market,” appeared in the November-December 1965 issue of the Financial Analysts Journal. By anticipating the eventual peak in the sunspot cycle, Collins asserted that investors could avoid the most serious stock market declines.

 Figure 1.

When a bearish divergence in sunspot activity occurs while the stock market continues to rise, 

it often precedes a significant market downturn.

Sunspot counts range from a low of near 0 at the bottom of the cycle to 100 to 200 at their peak. One of the final contributions of Collins’ long career as an investment counselor and writer was the following early warning signal: “An important stock market peak has been witnessed or directly anticipated when, in the course of each new sunspot cycle, the yearly mean of observed sunspot numbers has climbed above 50.” Once the annual mean climbs above 50, Collins added, the largest percentage decline of the stock market cycle usually follows. Based on a 1964 bottom in the sunspot cycle, Collins speculated that 1967 would bring the count above 50 and thus indicate trouble ahead for the market. The threshold was, in fact, breached in 1967, which was fair warning of the speculative peak in 1968. In 1978, Collins’ sunspot indicator marked another important high that was followed by a sideways market over the next four years (which was a decline in PPI-adjusted terms). The next signal came in May 1988. The 1987 crash had already occurred, so the warning was late. However, stocks had a second selloff in 1990 that brought the Value Line index back to its 1987 low (see Figure 2), so the sunspot threshold did signal a period of relative weakness. Despite minor anomalies, then, Collins’ observations have remained applicable. Figure 1 shows the history of the sunspot count, the stock market and those recessions most closely associated with sunspot maximums.

The current sunspot cycle began in October 1996 and appears to be adhering closely to the typical pattern. In the first two years of the cycle, the Dow Jones Industrial Average did not experience any significant stock market corrections as it gained 32%, slightly below the century-long average of 37% for this phase of the sunspot cycle. The annual sunspot mean of 50 was reached in 1998. Considering the succession of peaks in all the major market indicators and indexes, from the advance/decline line in April 1998 to the NASDAQ in March 2000, the sunspots and the market appear once again to be very much in line with historical observations. Once Collins’ fair-warning sunspot signal has been given, the market may go to new highs, but it has entered a window of vulnerability that has been followed by stock market weakness in every instance over the course of the 20th century. The end of the time zone for a market top is just before the maximum monthly sunspot number, which is shown as a dashed line in the chart. Sunspot maximums have come 1 to 15 months after peaks in stocks. The average is 8 months. According to solar scientists, the next peak is due in December 2000, which matches the average duration over the last century. The declines that commenced in January (DJIA) and March (NDQ) 2000, then, are within the window for a turn. At this point, the stock market’s decline almost certainly has further to go because a two-month loss of 17% (to early March low) would be shorter in time than any corresponding decline and shallower than all but that of 1978, when stock prices were already depressed.

Stock market weakness associated with sunspot maximum tends to run several years, averaging 4 years and 4 months. In terms of return, the least bearish event (see table, page 2) was that of cycle 6 in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Dow edged out a gain of 1.5 points over a period of almost 6 years. How much decline should we expect this time? The largest bear markets have come off sunspot maximums that are below the prior maximum. As you can see in Figure 2, the current sunspot cycle is doing exactly that. As with the sunspot cycles associated with the market highs in 1929 and 1968, which were followed by the two biggest bear markets of the century, the current sunspot cycle is topping out at a lower level than that of 1990. The recent bunching of the monthly sunspot count and the already-registered peak in the rate of change (see Figure 4) suggest a lower maximum sunspot in this cycle. 

 

 Figure 2.

The stock market often reaches its bottom and begins to rebound before sunspot activity hits its lowest point.

 
Links between sunspots and economic activity have been documented as far back as the 1720s. The shaded areas in Figure 1 show that every sunspot maximum this century has had a corresponding recession. In most cases, the recession begins when sunspots peak, which is after the top in the stock market. Only in 1938 and 1946 did the closest recession precede the sunspot maximum, but in the latter case, a second one occurred in 1948-49, roughly at the normal time. At this point in the current cycle, sunspots are approaching a peak, and a bear market in stocks is developing. The century of history shown here says unequivocally that today’s economy should be heading into the early stages of a recession or depression within a matter of months.

The stock market has never bottomed in this progression until a recession occurs. Thus, another reason to expect today’s new bear market to continue is that there has been no recession. Generally speaking, the periods from immediately before to immediately after each sunspot cycle maximum account for almost all of the major financial disruptions of the last century. In addition to the average of 4.4 years of stock market weakness, a sunspot cycle maximum and subsequent decline is generally followed by a financial crisis and another recession. At the beginning of the century, there was also a third recession at the sunspot lows.

By the time of the sunspot cycle minimum, the most severe turmoil for stocks and the economy is almost always past. In fact, buying opportunities have presented themselves ahead of the minimum point in every cycle since 1910. The dotted lines in Figure 3 show the same relative position of the sunspot frequency at important market bottoms. These bottoms, which include the start of Supercycle ) in 1932, Cycle III in 1942 and Cycle V in 1974, occurred when the rate of change in monthly sunspot counts decelerated to an average of 26.5% of its prior level (using a four-month moving average to smooth sunspot volatility). This bottom is due next in July 2004. Based on an average market effect of 4.4 down years, the current stock-market contraction should see a preliminary low in the first half of 2004. Given the potential, this headline from the July 17 USA Today strikes us as optimistic: More than likely, the disruptions have just begun, at least in the social sense.

 Figure 3.

Market excitement frequently peaks in response to the rate of change in sunspot activity.

Some effects from solar radiation are well documented. Sunspots disrupt satellite systems, radio transmissions and electric power grids. In the realm of mass human activity, the sun’s role has been a source of speculation since the dawn of civilization. In 1926, Professor A. C. Tchijevsky traced the sunspot activity back through 500 B.C. and found that it produced nine waves of human excitability per century. “As sunspot activity approaches maximum,” Tchijevsky found, “the number of mass historical events taken as whole increases.” Part II of The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior describes the basis of the Wave Principle and unconscious human herding behavior as a function of the human limbic system, which is the gatekeeper of emotion within the human brain. However, the limbic system is not necessarily independent of outside forces. As the radiating center of our solar system and the wellspring of practically all the energy on the planet, the sun is certainly an intriguing contender for some degree of external mass mental influence.

Why does the stock market typically peak before sunspots do? One very plausible explanation is that the collective tendency to speculate peaks out along with the rate of change in sunspot activity. If sunspots affect humans’ positive-mood excitability, that appears to be the point of maximum effect.

 

Figure 4.

When we explored this possible explanation, we found something additionally interesting. Figure 4 shows that as the solar radiation thrown off by the sun increases to a maximum rate (shown by our optimized 39-month rate of change in sunspot numbers), the human urge to speculate in general hits a fever pitch. Two months after the rate-of-change peak in 1916, the stock market established an all-time high that was not materially exceeded until the sunspot count was accelerating again in the mid-1920s. The next rate-of-change peak in October 1926 preceded the final stock market high by a full three years, but the speculative fever that accompanied the Florida land boom ended almost coincidentally, about two months earlier. The next peak was a double top that finished in February 1937, one month before a major stock market high. In 1947 and 1967, the rate of change peaked within 13 months of major stock peaks. In 1957, the peak coincided with with the all-time high in the advance-decline line, which stands to this day. The September 1979 peak was four months before a century-long high in precious metals prices. The August 1989 peak accompanied the all-time high in the Nikkei and the end of a big real estate boom in California and Japan. Since scientists’ grasp of the sunspot cycle is based on empirical observation rather than an understanding of what causes it, there is no way to verify that a rising rate of sunspot activity is behind these outbreaks. However, the speculative fall-off in the wake of every peak since 1916 is itself strong evidence of an effect. The latest peak rate of change came in December 1999, and that sets up a test. Will this peak in sunspots mark the end of the greatest mania in the history of the stock market? So far, the answer is “yes,” as the Dow topped a month later and the more speculative NASDAQ peaked in March. A ninth straight correspondence will not prove the case, but it will add to the empirical evidence.

 

 "Shortly before a sunspot cycle hits bottom, stocks turn up."

 

 Prices S&P 500 vs Solar Cycle 1916-2022.

 Quoted from:
Robert R. Prechter  Jr. and Peter Kendall (2011) - The Sunspot Cycle and Stocks.

The Wheel of Time: Raymond H. Wheeler's Drought Clock | Peter Temple

Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler (1892-1961) developed a clock to forecast recurring droughts, which coincided with colder climates. He found that every 170 years, the climate would turn colder and dryer, social mood would turn negative, civil wars would proliferate, and the economy would suffer from financial collapse.

Although he completed his work during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, he was able to accurately forecast the second half of the 20th century, based upon the cycles that occurred over and over again like clockwork from 600 BC through today. The Drought Clock shows shorter 100 Year Cycles of cold and dry which are compounded by the larger degree 170 Year Cycle, when they happen at the same time. You can see that he forecast the start of a cold, dry 170 Year Cycle just before the year 2000. Cold dry periods in history have almost always led to droughts (limited access to food), civil wars, riots, and economic recessions or depressions [...] The 515 Year Climate Cycle is also a major Civilization Cycle where virtually everything around us changes (more details Here + HERE). 

 

Reference:

 Peter Temple (2017) -  Today’s Predictable Problems: A Cycle Top.

Government Debt per Capita | The Global Picture

HowMuch.net (23 November 2016) - National debt is one of the most debated issues in politics. After the global recession, people began questioning debt and the implications of too much debt. While some country’s have high debt and some have low, a better measure is the amount of debt dividend by population. Take a look at the map below to see how much people in each country owe towards their country’s debt.

In the map above, you can see each country with a number representing the amount of money each person owes towards the country’s debt. In the legend, countries are designated a color based on public debt as a percentage of GDP. The more each citizen of a country owes, the closer to the center of the map the country is. All figures are in US dollars.

Countries where people owe the most:
    Japan: $85,694.87 per person
    Ireland: $67,147.59 per person
    Singapore: $56,112.75 per person
    Belgium: $44,202.75 per person
    United States: $42,503.98 per person
    Canada: $42,142.61 per person
    Italy: $40,461.11 per person
    Iceland: $39,731.65 per person
    Austria:  $38,769.98 per person
    United Kingdom: $36,206.11 per person

Countries where people owe the least:
    Liberia: $27.44 per person
    Tajikistan: $50.67 per person
    Democratic Republic of Congo: $90.70 per person
    Burundi: $97.62 per person
    Kiribati: $126.98 per person
    Malawi: $172.34 per person
    Uzbekistan: $177.13 per person
    Uganda: $194.23 per person
    Haiti: $204.33 per person
    Mali: $207.54 per person

Right in the center of the map lies Japan, the country with the highest amount of debt owed by each person. Japan has been piling up debt since its “economic miracle” wore off in the 1990s. Each Japanese person owes $85,694.87 towards Japan’s national debt, far more than any other country. Ireland also stands out from the crowd, with each Irish person owing $67,147.59 towards Ireland’s national debt. All of the other countries with a high amount of debt owed per person are developed nations like the United States, Belgium, Austria, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and others. Developed nations are able to borrow more money because investors generally trust wealthier nations will pay back debt in full. Still, many wealth nations have a staggering amount of debt owed.

The countries with the lowest amount of debt owed per person are relatively poor nations. Liberians owe the least amount of money towards their country’s national debt at $27.44 per person. Other poor nations with low debt include Democratic Republic of Congo, at $90.70 per person, and Haiti, at $204.33 per person. Poor nations usually do not have the opportunity to take on national debt because investors are unwilling to offer loans to these nations. There are a few exceptions to the trend of poorer nations owing the least amount towards debt per person. Taiwan is a relatively wealthy nation with a large economy compared to the size of its population, but each Taiwanese citizen only owes $7,223.90 towards Taiwan’s national debt.

The trend in the chart is pretty clear: wealthier nations have more debt. Japan, Ireland and Singapore are above the trend, with Japanese people in particular owing a lot towards their country’s debt. People living in developed countries owe quite a bit towards their country’s national debt, while people living in undeveloped nations owe very little.

SPX vs Inclination of the Moon @ MIN @ MAX @ 0°

Because of the inclination of the Moon's orbit, the Moon is above the horizon at the North and South Pole for almost two weeks every month, even though the sun is below the horizon for six months at a time. The period from moonrise to moonrise at the poles is quite close to the sidereal period, or 27.3 days. When the Sun is the furthest below the horizon (Winter Solstice), the Moon will be full when it is at its highest point.

Exuberance is Beauty | On the Political Influence of the Sun

Boris Groys (2017) - During the period of modernity we got accustomed to the understanding of the human beings as determined by the social milieu in which they live, as knots in the informational networks, as organisms depending on their environment. In the times of globalization we learned that we are dependent on everything that happens around the globe – politically, economically, ecologically. But the Earth is not isolated in Cosmos. It depends on the processes that take place in the cosmic space – on black matter, waves and particles, star explosions and galactic collapses. And the fate of mankind also depends on these cosmic processes because all these cosmic waves and particles go through the human bodies. The positioning of the Earth in the cosmic whole determines the conditions under which the living organisms can survive on its surface.

Georges Batailles (1897-1962): "Solar radiation results in a superabundance of energy on the
surface of the globe. But, first, living matter receives this energy and accumulates it within
the limits given by the space that is available to it. It then radiates or squanders it, but
before devoting an appreciable share to this radiation it makes maximum use of it for growth.
Only the impossibility of continuing growth makes way for squander. Hence the real excess does not
begin until the growth of the individual or group has reached its limits."(HERE)

This dependence of the mankind on the cosmic events that are uncontrollable and even unknown is the source of the specifically modern anxiety. One can say: Cosmic anxiety. The anxiety of being a part of Cosmos – and not able to control it. Not accidentally our contemporary mass culture is so much obsessed with the visions of asteroids coming form the black cosmic space and destroying the Earth. But this anxiety has also more subtle forms. As an example one can cite the theory of the ‘accursed share” that was developed by Georges Bataille. According to this theory, the Sun always sends more energy to the Earth than the Earth, including the organisms living on its surface, can absorb. After all the efforts to use this energy for production of goods and raising the living standard of the population there also remains a non-absorbed, non-used rest of the solar energy. This rest of energy is necessarily destructive – it can be spent only through violence and war. Or, at least, through ecstatic festivals and sexual orgies that channel and absorb this rest of energy through the less dangerous activities. Thus, human culture and politics become also determined by the cosmic energies – forever shifting between order and disorder.

Now, Bataille’s solar myth reminds one strongly of the interpretation of the world history as defined by the activity of the Sun – interpretation that was formulated by Russian historian and biologist Alexander Chizhevsky in the 1920s and 1930s. During this period of time Chizhevsky’s ideas spread also to the West, especially to France and the USA, and some of his texts were published in French and English – so that his ideas could reach Bataille (for example A. L. Chizhevsky (1938): Les Épidémies et les perturbations electromagnetiques; Paris, Hippocrate). However, the main text written by Chizhevsky in which his theory is extensively formulated and proved by empirical data was published only relatively recently in Russian. Chizhevsky collected a huge empirical data – from the Roman and early Chinese sources up to the 1930s – to show the close correlation between the periods of the higher activity of the Sun and mass revolutionary movements. It is, of course, the Russian revolution in 1917 that gave the decisive impulse to his research. Chizhevsky asks: why under similar social, economic and political constellations in some cases masses become mobilized and revolutionized but in other cases they remain passive and indifferent. The answer that Chizhevsky offers is this: to be able to start a revolutionary movement the human beings should be mobilized not only on the level of the spirit but also on the level of the body. The human spirit can be mobilized through an ideology but, according to Chizhevsky the degree of mobilization of the human body, like of all the organisms living on the Earth, is dependent on the cycles of solar activity. 

Chizhevsky collected an incredible amount of astronomical and historical data to show the correlation between activity of the Sun and activity of revolutionary movements. As he shows the greatest revolutions coincided with the greatest activity of the Sun – and the historical process is characterized by a succession of active and passive periods corresponding to the 11 years cycles of solar activity (the highest degree of activity follows the 22 years cycle). But it seems to me that for our time the most interesting part of his results concerns the relationship between activity of the Sun and English parliamentary election. These results show that the influence of the Sun dictates not only the choice between revolution and status quo but also between leftwing and rightwing politics in the framework of regular parliamentary processes. Thus, Chizhevsky shows that for the period between 1830 and 1924 the summary activity of Sun during the rule of liberal governments was 155,6% higher than during the rule of conservative governments. The conservative governments never had power when the number of sunspots was over 93. The moments of change in the solar activity are almost precisely correlated to the changes of the English governments.

At the end of his text Chizhevsky suggests that the knowledge of the correlation between activity of the Sun and political activity of the masses can prepare the political classes to the seemingly unexpected changes of the public mood. During the financial crisis in the year 2009 some specialist remembered the so-called Kondratiev waves – Nikolai Kondratiev, a student of Chizhevsky, applied his theory on the economic cycles and predicted all of them including the 2009 crisis. On the political level one is reminded of the years 1968, 1989 and, again, 2010-11. Here it is interesting to mention that the present time is the time of the weakest solar activity since the 20th century – the period of political indifference and passivity of the masses. However, the political effects of the bigger numbers of sunspots are often ambiguous. Chizhevsky specifically warns that the growth of solar activity can lead not only to the adoption of progressive agenda by the masses but also to the rise of irrational and reactionary populist movements.

References:

Georges Bataille (1949) - The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. 

Alexander Chizhevsky (1924) - Physical Factors of the Historical Process.

Alexander Chizhevsky (1938) - Les Epidemies et les perturbations electro-magnetiques du milieu exterieur.

Nikolai Kondratieff (1925) - The Major Economic Cycles. 

SPX vs Venus Latitude Cycle @ MIN @ MAX @ 0°

Upcoming events:
2017 Mar 20 (Mon) 05:13   VEN Lat @ MAX
2017 May 09 (Tue) 03:07   VEN Lat @ 0°
2017 Jun 23 (Fri) 07:20   VEN Lat @ MIN
2017 Aug 30 (Wed) 06:25   VEN Lat @ 0°
2017 Oct 22 (Sun) 04:58   VEN Lat @ MAX
2017 Dec 19 (Tue) 18:52   VEN Lat @ 0°
2018 Feb 15 (Thu) 15:04   VEN Lat @ MIN
See also HERE

Update

Solar and Economic Relationships | Carlos Garcia-Mata & Felix Ira Shaffner

It is common knowledge that people from all walks of life and every station of society participated in what is now generally agreed was - considering the number of persons and transactions involved - the greatest speculative mania of modern times. The bursting of this speculative bubble at the end of 1929 affords an excellent opportunity for something analogous to an experiment on the correlation of turning points in solar and speculative activity. Stock prices had experienced an extraordinary rise from a level of around 100 in 1924 to approximately 320 in the first half of 1929.

 

[…] With this in mind, we compared monthly data of speculation in 1929 with variations in solar phenomena for the same year […] In the upper part of the chart the solar-radiation curve is plotted upside down to help visualize the inverse correlation. Another comparison between business and solar data was made employing an index computed since August, 1924, by the Mount Wilson Observatory. This is an index of a part of the solar spectrum, the ultraviolet rays, which, it will be remembered, vary within a much wider range than the total solar radiation curve. This index was reduced to a 12-month moving average to make it comparable with the rest of the chart. Although the period is so short that nothing statistical can be deduced, the existence of a direct correlation with the business curve is apparent […] For an index of American speculative sentiment, we chose Professor W.L. Crum's index of industrial stock prices, known as “Barron's Averages, because they are constructed to portray the speculative movement of stock prices rather than the trend of investment prices.” 

[...] A glance at the chart will show a striking similarity in the date of the turning points. Furthermore, contrary to expectations, the behavior of the two curves during the whole year is similar. The lowest prices for common stocks in the New York and London Stock Exchanges were reached in the first half of July 1932 [...] The [third] chart shows the curious fact that the recession in the last quarter of 1932 is also visible in the solar curve. And it is interesting to note that the solar curve makes a second low in February, 1933, turning up again in the following months. Although this is a fact, too much should not be expected of comparisons for the year 1933 because, except for clear solar changes which are sudden and which can be associated with the turning points, it is too much to hope for an exact month-to-month correlation. In the years in which the speculative curves moved steadily up or down, such as in 1930-31 and previous to 1929, no clear moth-to-month relation has been found between solar and speculative short swings, except for the seasonal movements of the speculative curve in the down swing, which perhaps can be associated with the similar seasonal variations of the solar-terrestrial physical curves such as magnetic activity and aurora borealis.

 

Reference:
Carlos Garcia-Mata & Felix Ira Shaffner (1934) - Solar and Economic Relationships: A Preliminary Report. 

Solar Activity and Economic Recessions | Mikhail Gorbanev

Out of 22 recessions in the US economy identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in 1901-2008, in the years corresponding to solar cycles numbered by astronomers from 14 to 23, eleven recessions began in two years around and after maximum points of those cycles. Moreover, out of 13 of those recessions that began in 1933-2008 (solar cycles 17 to 23), eight – over 60 percent – began in two years around and after solar maximums.

Out of 36 recessions in G7 countries identified by NBER and The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) in 1965-2008 (solar cycles 20 to 23), 21 – nearly 60 percent – began in 3 years around and after solar maximums.

Since 1933, US economy spent 1/3 of time in recession in about 3 years after solar maximums.

Each of eight solar maximums in 1929-2008 overlapped closely with low points in the US unemployment rate followed by its sharp increase.

Refugee inflows in the EU countries followed solar cycle pattern in 1985-2015. 

Economic conditions in the U.S. and G7 countries deteriorated in 2015-2016, consistent with the historical pattern. Composite Leading Indicators (CLIs) designed by the OECD to give early signals of turning points in the business cycle deteriorated for the U.S., for the G7 countries, and for the entire OECD. 

But no U.S. recession? A pattern observed for over 100 years suggested elevated chances of U.S. recession starting in 2014-15, which did not happen.

 

And no reversal in the U.S. unemployment trend? The historical pattern pointed to possibility that the declining trend in the U.S. unemployment rate would bottom out and reverse in 2014-15, which did not occur. 

In both cases, U.S. Fed’s highly accommodative monetary policy targeted at supporting economic recovery and boosting employment can explain the deviation from the historical pattern. Never before the U.S. Federal Funds rate remained virtually zero for so long even as the economy expanded and unemployment rate declined to its lowest level in many years. 

CLI indices for all G7 countries and the US generally reached their maximums before solar maximums and declined to their troughs in years after it.

For the entire OECD, the concordance between the CLI index and solar cycle looked even more regular. In 1962‐2012, all five solar maximums overlapped with dips in the CLI index, and the index reached its maximum values shortly before the sunspot maximums. When comparing the OECD CLI values across solar cycles, we discovered that standard deviations of the values for these cycles confirmed statistical significance of the indicator’s spike before and trough after the solar maximum. The EURO area CLI index followed broadly the same pattern, thus confirming the link with the solar cycle even when the US economy was excluded. 

Moreover, the dynamic of the CLI indices was broadly consistent among the largest OECD economies. We observed that in Japan, Germany, France, and UK, the CLI indices reached their maximums shortly before or around the solar maximum, and declined to the troughs in the years after it. The exact months of maximums and minimums varied between countries. Apparently, the statistical significance also varied, from the lowest for Japan and highest for Germany and France. 

 

The most important European revolutions of the XIX and XX century overlapped closely with the sunspot maximums. Remarkably, both the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire and the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, which could be considered the two most important revolutions of the XX century, both occurred exactly in the years of solar maximums. In France, all the greatest revolutions of the modern times including the Great French Revolution of 1789, the revolutions of 1830 and 1849, and “Paris Commune” in 1871 overlapped very closely with the solar maximums. In America, the secession of the 13 southern US states in 1861 that triggered the bloodiest civil war in the continent’s history occurred in the year of solar maximum. Most recently, the cyclical increase in the solar activity in the currently unfolding 24th solar cycle overlapped closely with the “Arab Spring”, a series of revolutions in the Arab countries in 2010-13, and with revolution in Ukraine in 2013-14.

 

Quoted from:
Mikhail Gorbanev (2016) - Solar Activity and Economic Recessions.