People sometimes have the mistaken impression that peace economics is a fanciful concept, like world peace, that is unattainable and unrealistic. Actually peace economics is a very real and useful tool to understanding the world as it really is.

Military States

            The popular notion that military spending stimulates the economy depends on a misunderstanding about high military spending states.  Yes those states do benefit from military buildups, but it is because the federal government is spending on those states much more than it is taking from those states in taxation.  Where the government takes more away in taxation, mainly the industrial Midwest, than it spends on military spending, those states suffer as much as the military states benefit.  I'm sure a very profitable mutual fund could be set up based on this principle alone.  Invest in low military spending states when wars end or the military is reduced, and invest in high military spending states or military contractors when there is a military buildup.  Adjusting a portfolio according to these principles would consistently beat the market, because the military factor is very poorly understood this way.

Cycles

            Cycles are all around us.  We all recognize the day and night cycle of 24 hours. We all see the seasonal cycles of the 365 day year.  More of us are beginning to recognize the nine year Juglar investment cycle recessions, especially now that the three year inventory cycle recession has all but disappeared after the eighties.  But almost none of us see the work-life long Kondratiev cycle of 54 years.  Even many of the long cycle followers see it ranging from 40 years to 70 years, leading them to think the cycle is manmade.  Investors are less interested in the long economic cycle than the long inflation and interest rate cycles that result from these economic fundamentals.  The idea that these cycles are naturally caused is very difficult for many to accept.  That the planet and the sun may be the prime cause is laughable to many.  Yet the evidence is consistent across climate change, economic change, and the major war cycle.

Best evidence of the long cycle:

https://www.academia.edu/4101856/EVENTS_Weather_Economy_War_List56_54yearCycle

Hint: to read this paper for free, you must click on the tiny word "read" in the middle of the bottom of the screen after you go to the above link on academia.edu.

Forecasting Short Term

            Two factors under the control of the federal government dominate short term changes in the national economic growth rate.  The federal deficit puts money into the economy and causes the national economic growth rate to increase approximately dollar for dollar.  This is like using a credit card to have a good time:  the pain does not occur until the debt is paid off.  Roosevelt in 1937, Carter after 1978, and Bush after 1990 found out that reducing the deficit with tax increases led to recession.  The second factor is military spending.  When there is a substantial increase in the military spending the manufacturing economy will lower by that same amount.  When there is a substantial decrease in military spending the manufacturing economy will grow by that same amount.  Military spending is non productive so it delivers resources to local economies and adds to the deficit giving the appearance of economic growth in those areas.  But at the same time it takes resources and jobs away from the manufacturing economy reducing the economic growth rate of "high manufacturing" "low military" regions of the country.  War budgets usually avoid the pain of paying for the military in wartime, leaving a deficit lift to offset the military drop in the economy of the nation as a whole.  But regional differences are enormous and poorly understood as the negative consequence of a military buildup.  Military builddowns in the early sixties, seventies, and late nineties created national growth booms in the Great Lakes industrial states.  This led to football dynasties in Green Bay in the sixties and Pittsburg in the seventies.  The Reagan Bush military buildup of the eighties and early nineties led to the military city football dynasties of San Francisco, Washington DC, and Dallas.

Forecasting Long Term

The Kondratiev 54 year cycle shows in the American economy as a peak in the economic growth rate in 1898, 1952, and 2006.  Economic growth bottomed out in 1928, 1982, and will again in 2036. The interest rates and inflation rates will bottom out at the economic peaks and stagflation with both high unemployment rates and high inflation will peak at the economic growth rate bottoms.  Short term factors will influence these events somewhat in timing and severity.  The current low inflation and low interest rates will steadily increase in the next twenty years.  The end of the 1994 to 2021 "high growth" and "high wealth creation" period is coming to an end soon.

Reinterpreting History

            Certainly humankind has had an impact on history, and that story is complex and seemingly random.  Yet certain strong threads emerge along the way, that strongly impact the timing and severity of events.  The details remain endlessly varied.  Those patterns can be recognized clearly in long term data with the proper yardsticks and measures.  There is a physical science to be found among the various social sciences.  Likewise the rise and fall of empires and decay of empires has a method to its madness often overlooked by historians.  The seventy year period of high military spending by America after World War Two has led to a steady long term erosion of manufacturing, economic growth rates, and health and crime statistics.  Lotteries and drugs have become much more popular ways to escape the misery of the vanishing middle class.  All this is the decline of empire, and moral erosion is a result of these factors, not a cause as the right wing believes.  Military spending is the prime cause.

Summary

            That this useful theory is not just another theory is shown by the accuracy.  This page of high accuracy correlations has eight of the thirteen key measurements within one percent of perfection.  Together with good logic and internal consistency, this makes for a compelling new way to look at the world. 

Here are the key statistics and relationships:

https://www.academia.edu/4044456/Summary

Hint: to read this paper for free, you must click on the tiny word "read" in the middle of the bottom of the screen after you go to the above link on academia.edu.

Here is an eleven page proof of the long term model mentioned in the above list:

https://www.academia.edu/7632773/PROOF_of_Peace_Economics_11_pages

Hint: to read this paper for free, you must click on the tiny word "read" in the middle of the bottom of the screen after you go to the above link on academia.edu.

Movement Building

            Just as psychologists and religious people can see the self-destructive seeds of hate consume a person, the self-destructive seeds of empire can be recognized by some but are very poorly understood by many. This gives rise to many amateur interpretations by many with the partial knowledge of just their own academic fields, philosophies, or religions.  It will probably take a very strong social movement to overcome the inertia and false ideology of empire.  Such a movement would get a great boost if the Robert Reuschlein Peace Economics work was widely recognized due to being nominated for the Nobel Prize.  Please consider doing so.

Several Nobel Prize nomination pathways are suggested here:

https://www.academia.edu/4485636/NOBEL_Prize_Pathways

Hint: to read this paper for free, you must click on the tiny word "read" in the middle of the bottom of the screen after you go to the above link on academia.edu.

If you would like to further this cause read the following:  The Nobel Peace Prize is open to nominations by February 1^st of each year by professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology, or members of national assemblies and governments, among others.  Alfred Nobel's Will says "to the person who shall have done the most or best work …..for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and …."  The deciding committee is in Oslo, Norway.  The Nobel Economics Prize is decided and awarded in Sweden, and the Nobel Physics Prize is decided and awarded in Sweden.  The names of the nominees won't be revealed for 50 years. 

The official website is www.nobelprize.org