Imaginative economists needed

  Within the past two decades we have experienced two great economic crises, the 2007 recession and the Covid-19 dislocation.  We were prepared for neither, so the remedies were inefficient, insufficient and harmful.  Too many people were economically crushed by each recession and the national debt increased too much; that is, had we responded rationally, then fewer people would have lost so much and the national treasury would not be so emptied (indebted).

Here are some emergency government actions that should be prearranged and ready for future economic crises – these in addition to standard safety-net responses.

1) Pay a modest need-based wage supplement to all adults, rather than the flat emergency payment.  Not enough to de-incentiveize work.

2) Levy a temporary personal-wealth tax, enough to cover much of the extra treasury draw.  This recovers some of the dollars transferred from treasury to the rich by Republican tax cuts.

3) Temporarily slow all debt payments and rent payments, so the above modest wage can prevent defaults and bankruptcies.  Payments should suffice to preserve essential banking service.

4) Temporarily and reversibly adjust mortgage bases to partially blunt effects of neighborhood-wide property-value snowballs/dominoes.  This shares such owner risks between borrower and lender.  Far fewer owners would then go under water.  I discussed this earlier:     https://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2018/10/flexible-mortgage-contracts.html

5) Prohibit excessive mortgage-loan riskiness now, eg excessive interest jumps, excessive 2nd mortgages.

6) Frustrate property predators, vultures, speculators, corporations, foreign investors.

How should this emergency-action list be modified and elaborated by astute ethical economists, ones concerned with survival and justice as well as domestic tranquility?  There is still the homelessness problem and the trade-balance problem needing such economists, also the overpopulation and environmental problems, also the problem technologists and automation displacing workers.

I despair seeing that reason withers as tribalism thrives.

How does gravity happen?

How does gravity happen?  How do separated particles or masses accelerate each other selfward?  How does momentum get to and/or from particles in this acceleration?  I believe that answers to these questions can be found in properties and actions of a medium that fills all space, which was and still should be named aether.

After all of my musings about gravity and after writing this little essay, I've come believe that the truth is to be found in this YouTube talk. 

Gravity mechanisms

1)  One view holds that space is filled with (ie aether contains) momentum-bearing corpuscles or wavelets that push matter particles in the direction of their translation or propagation as they are absorbed (possibly diverted) by those matter particles.  Owing to this action, each matter particle is surrounded by a spherically divergent field of diminished corpuscle or wavelet traffic in the direction away from itself, hence a field of excess momentum toward itself.  All particles in the universe would be accelerated toward that matter particle and analogously toward each other.  Gravity is mutual.  I spent some time considering the implications of this view.

2)  Another view holds that particles consume, destroy or otherwise diminish adjacent escape potential (fugacity), resulting in a spherically divergent fugacity field, a fugacity gradient toward itself.  Particles in such a gradient are accelerated toward lower fugacity, ie toward other particles, in a manner analogous to a proton experiencing an emf.  Presumably a particle accelerated this way sends momentum-bearing wavelets (rocket-like) in the opposite (rearward, uphill) direction, momentum being a conserved quantity.  This picture comes to mind when I attempt to understand General Relativity.

3)  Another view holds that particles consume or destroy adjacent aether, thereby creating spherically divergent fields of selfward aether flow that wash particles toward each other.  Here I'm attempting to convey the mechanism proposed by Distinti and others.

The reader is invited to critique, correct, refine and add to these generalizations (address: xmsdavidr@gmail.com).

Orbit features

General Relativity is a mathematical model that accounts for all observable orbits and all other gravity effects.  My wavelet model by itself can’t account for the simplest of orbits, two equal masses alone in an otherwise massless universe.  Not yet.

Perhaps something can be learned from two unequal masses alone in an otherwise massless universe.

Here we see some interesting locations between the masses – 1) the barycenter, c (center of gravity about which objects orbit, where fugacity is lower than elsewhere in the neighborhood) and 2) the fugacity saddle, s (where the two fields balance unstably and a test object would experience no gravity but would experience centrifugal force).  There are several other interesting locations in the system called Lagrangian points, where lighter objects can settle stably and co-orbit around the barycenter with the main masses.

It seems that the masses are accelerated toward and orbit the barycenter as if that were the source of the centripetally accelerating field.  It seems not to matter that the field everywhere is the sum of two gravity fields of masses that are moving and changing velocities.  The system behaves as if an object’s fugacity field is instantly established and/or eternal, despite the constant centripetal acceleration of the masses toward each other and the barycenter.  Perhaps the fields themselves are gravitationally accelerated as are the masses.  This raises the question whether a mass’s field plays a role in its responses to other masses, contrary to Newton’s laws.  I'm suggesting here that an object's gravity field responds to a neighbor's gravity field like light (as predicted by Einstein and observed by Eddington).

If you had no problem believing that two masses in an otherwise massless universe could orbit each other, then you tacitly agree that aether is, that aether sits or sloshes in an inertial frame of space.  Without a reference frame there can be no orbit and no centrifugal force to balance the centripetal force of gravity.  Moreover, the orbiting bodies must emit LIGO waves, losing kinetic energy (speed) to the aether; and they must gradually approach each other and merge – these two masses alone in an otherwise matterless universe.

        Losing kinetic energy to the aether is tantamount to experiencing a headwind, as expected of the wavelet mechanism of gravity.

First-Sunday Seminar at Bellevue Christian

 For about half a year, I conducted a monthly Seminar on the Human Condidtion at Bellevue Christian.

These were the Sunday-School classes that should have been but weren't .

For this, I bought a lap-top and a large monitor and speakers, so all attendees could see and hear the material.

Each seminar consisted of experiencing and discussing three internet items:

a)  An existential song usually from the folk-revival movement.

b)  A trenchant lecture or report on a societal issue.

c)  A parable from the Country Pathos collection.

Here are all six seminars:

1a  One Voice    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q41ctPLDHvU

1b  Collapse of Venezuela    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA

1c  These Hills    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MWcRKKTxT0

2a  Both Sides, Now    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbn6a0AFfnM

2b  Jane Goodall    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51z7WRDjOjM&t=112s

2c  Unavailable    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRa7cBDoCA

3a  Mercy Now    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT7NiFpJmvI

3b  Tribalism    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWgM2gBRQrA&t=10s

3c  Coat of many colors    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI

4a  The Circle Game    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9VoLCO-d6U

4b  Progressives hate progress    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnitLNObR7c

4c  Tear Drops Falling    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7T8ZbXVVcU

5a  Where have all the flowers gone    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI3QVsW30j0

5b  Why societies collapse    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IESYMFtLIis

5c  Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD46aUHMAQE

6a  Hard Times    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE8L843iUy4

6b1  5 Important Questions    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fguhlv23lSg&t=1s

6b2  Case for Optimism    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6JFr7QIkLE

6c  He Stopped Loving Her Today    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VExw77xJsBQ

Country Church at Bellevue Christian

On Second Sundays, some Singalong Pickers stayed and led the church-service music.

The Gospel Supplement was used as the hymnal.

On those days, congregational singing was spirited.

A misguided minister then forbad it and tried to turn the church Anglican, then came Corid 19.

2018 Nov 

Prelude Sing:  75  Shall we gather at the river  C

Gathering Hymn:  46  Keep on the sunny side  F

Communion Hymn:  38  In the garden  G

Distribution Instrumental:  54  Lower lights  G

Offertory Performance: Tim Hollimon Traveling the hway

Invitation Hymn:  50  Life’s railway to heaven  G

Closing Hymn:  104  Will the circle be unbroken  G

2018 Dec

Prelude Sing:  1  Quietly rustles the snow

Gathering Hymn:  2  What Child is this

Communion Hymn:  3  Beautiful Star of Bethehem

Distribution Instrumental:  4  Sweetly the bells

Offertory Performance: Ruslan&Amelie 5 Christmas Angels

Invitation Hymn:  6  One Christmas eve

Closing Hymn:  7  Silent Night (repeat first verse acapella)

2019 Jan

Prelude Sing: 43 Just a closer walk with Thee

Gathering Hymn:  60 Never grow old

Communion Hymn:  64 Old rugged cross

Distribution Instrumental: 89 Using my bible for a roadmap

Offertory Performance:  99 Where could I go

Invitation Hymn:  77 Softly and tendrly

Closing Hymn:  11 Down by the riverside

2019 Feb 

Prelude Instrmtl 2 verses: 32 I feel like traveling on

Gathering Hymn:  62 Old country church

Communion Hymn: 24 He took your place

Distribution Instrmtl 2v: 56 Gathering flowers for Master’s

Offertory Performance: 67 One step more

Invitation Hymn: 68 Pass me not

Closing Hymn:  10 The darkest hour is just befor dawn

2019 Mar 

Prelude Instrmtl 2 verses: 37 I’ll sing for my Lord

Gathering Hymn: 45 Just over in the glory land

Communion Hymn: 58 My Jesus I love Thee

Distribution Instrmtl 2v: 95 When Heaven comes down

Offertory Performance: Jack&Bill 55 Mansion for me

Invitation Hymn: 18 Give me the roses

Closing Hymn: 33 I saw the light

2019 Apr 

Prelude Instrmtl 2 verses: 36 I’ll meet you in the morning

Gathering Hymn: 49 Leaning on the everlasting arms

Communion Hymn: 80 Sweet by and by

Distribution Instrmtl 2 verses: 94 When He calls

Offertory Performance: Regen Back Silent empty chair

Invitation Hymn: 91 Washed in the blood

Closing Hymn: 97 When the roll is called up yonder

2019 May 

Prelude Pickers Sing all: 99 Where could I go

Gathering Hymn: 79 Standing on the promises

Communion Hymn: 25 Hide me Rock of Ages

Distribution Instrmtl 2 verses: 20 Gone home

Offertory Performance: Ashlie 2 Angel band

Invitation Hymn: 100 Where the roses never fade

Closing Hymn: 35 I’ll fly away

2019 June 

Prelude Pickers Sing all: 8 Church in the Wildwood

Gathering Hymn: 93 What a friend

Communion Hymn: 42 Jesus Savior pilot me

Distribution Instrmtl 2+ verses: 4 Beautiful isle of somewhere

Offertory Performance: Ashlie He reached down

Invitation Hymn: 29 Hold to God’s unchanging hand

Closing Hymn: 84 This world is not my home

2019 July 

Prelude Pickers Sing all: 13 Dust on the Bible

Gathering Hymn: 21 Great Speckled Bird

Communion Hymn: 71 Precious Memories

Distribution Instrmtl  verses as needed: 57 Mother’s Bible

Offertory Instrumtl  verses as needed: 57 Mother’s Bible cont'd

Special Music: 5 A beautiful life

Invitation Hymn: 39 It is well with my soul

Closing Hymn: 7 Bringing in the sheaves

Gravity Paradox

    Occasionally I enjoy contemplating a universe with only two bodies -- originally to address the questions of universal coordinates and space-filling aether, later to consider implications of LIGO waves, recently to see whether I would predict perihelion precession -- this time to see whether I can account for stable orbits.  As will be seen, I can't.
    Owing to their gravity fields, the two bodies would either crash together or orbit each other.
   Consider the simple case where the two bodies are of equal mass and they orbit each other on opposite sides of a circle as depicted below.

Fig 1.  Model of two equal bodies orbiting each other.  The sunbursts at top and bottom of the orbit circle show where the bodies are now.  The small circles at upper-left and lower-right of the orbit circle show where the bodies were earlier when forming the bits of gravity field reaching the bodies now.  Arrows toward the small circles and away from starbursts show the direction of the same bits of gravitational field then and now, respectively.  Dash lines show the paths of those bits between formation and action.  Vertical and horizontal arrows from starbursts show centripetal and tangential components of acceleration, respectively.

    As I began to construct this picture, I realized that the gravitational field experienced by each body now is that diverging from the other body earlier when it was behind where it is now.  As depicted, the gravitational acceleration is not purely centripetal as needed for orbit stability.  It is mostly centripetal, but there is (according to this picture) a small tangential component in the direction of the body's orbital motion -- exaggerated here for illustration.
    Naively viewed, the picture implies the energetically impossible continual acceleration of each body in its orbital direction --  at no cost to the source of the acceleration.  This paradox leads me to suspect that a gravitational field might coast along with the body from which it diverged, thereby accelerating the other body centripetally purely.  But would that field coast as if following the circle or the tangent?  By what mechanism?  Could it be that gravity's acceleratory force propagates in a medium (aether) that is pushed and/or pulled along by massive bodies?  Or could it be that the graviton doesn't leave the source until it impacts the target, since time cannot progress in a light-speed agent.
    Something amazing about the mechanism of gravitational-field propagation might derive from these considerations.
    My theory of gravity doesn't involve gravitons, , , yet:
 https://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2020/03/mechanistic-theory-of-gravity.html

Glucose-Transport Rate Law

This is the back of our 60th-wedding-anniversary T-Shirt about 2018.

It's the model I produced as a graduate student about 1960 and studied for several subsequent years.

Here's a much later work product:
https://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2017/09/ellipsoid-wall-thickness.html

Letter to the editor Tennessean

   D. Bielawski’s Mar-20 letter, Put politics away, confuses me.  We both experienced the deprivations of the Great Depression and WWII, probably also unsupervised socialization, improvised recreations, unquestioned patriotism, hard work and awakening to racial injustice.
   All neighborhoods gave their sons to the war, sons who volunteered or responded proudly.  ‘War rich’ was a pejorative.  Word was bond.  The courage of our elders can hardly be imagined today – flying high-casualty sorties over Germany every day, launching beach assaults against well protected automatic weapons.
   With that life experience, I don’t know why Mr Bielawski doesn’t find draft-dodging Trump revolting.  How can he forgive Trump’s daily lies, his ignorance, lack of curiosity and his pretense, his long history of using lawyers to cheat contractors and investors?  How can he admire someone whose businesses have failed so unfailingly, someone utterly lacking modesty, generosity and empathy, someone who disrespects his spouses and brags about abusing defenseless girls?
   Those things “this president has done for this country” could have been done better by a president capable of respecting others, one surrounded by experts rather than toadies, one who considers unintended consequences before acting, one who loves truth and justice, one who doesn’t embarrass me every day.
   Disgust with Trump isn’t hate.  By contrast, Obama was subjected to unprovoked hate and lies from Fox and Breitbart pundits and from Trump throughout his tenure -- sadly also from many of my fellow bluegrass fans.