Ex Astris Scientia

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 29 October, 2015.

Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. When mankind decided that lifting their eyes up to the hills wasn’t enough, and aimed higher for truth, there they were – the stars. Our quest for knowledge about that which we could see, and that which we could not, has driven human civilizations to heights not dreamed of. But, as JBS Haldane noted, the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. We are still just scratching at the surface of what’s out there. 

 In 2009, the Kepler space observatory was launched, and one of the stars it observed was KIC 8462852, approximately 1480 light years from us. It’s a rather unwieldy name, but now, after a paper published on 17 October, it is colloquially known as Tabby’s star (after Tabetha S Boyajian) or the WTF star (Where’s the flux – Boyajian’s paper about the star.) Boyajian is part of the Planet Hunters project, a group of people analysing the fluctuation in the brightness of stars to detect extrasolar planets. 

Tabby’s star was different though. A planet the size of Jupiter would obscure the brightness of a star by about 1%, but on 5 March 2011, Tabby’s star had its luminosity drop by 15%, and by 22% on 28 February 2013. This was unprecedented, and some of the theories surrounding what caused it requires some background. 

In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev, a Soviet astronomer, proposed a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on the energy it is able to tap into. He proposed three categories – Type I, where a civilization uses all resources available on its home planet, Type II, where it harnesses the energy of its star, and Type III, where an entire galaxy is utilized. 

The American astronomer Carl Sagan expanded on his idea, suggesting intermediate values based on a logarithmic scale between these types based on the expected power outputs for the civilizations mentioned above. Type I would harness approximate 10^16 watts (10 to the power 16, or a 1 followed by 16 zeros), with Type II consuming 10^26 watts, and Type III 10^36 watts. Based on the total world energy consumption in 2012 (17.54 terawatts, or 17.54 x 10^12 watts) human civilization is currently a Type 0.724 civilization on the Kardashev scale. It is estimated that humanity will reach Type I in about 100 to 200 years.

Yet it was a few years earlier than Kardashev that Freeman J Dyson postulated about the hypothetical megastructure that would make a Type II civilization possible. In his 1960 paper, “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation,” Dyson speculated about the increased energy needs of civilizations as they grow, and proposed a system of orbiting structures designed to collect all energy produced by a star, and how such a structure could be identified by its unusual emissions spectrum compared to the star.

His concept was popularized as a Dyson Sphere - a shell around the sun. Such a sphere would intercept the full 3.84 x 10^26 watts of solar power output (about 21 trillion times humanity’s current power output) with a surface area about 550 million times the surface of the earth. 

 

Such a construct is beyond our current capabilities, but Dyson’s original concept was actually what is known as a Dyson swarm – a large number of independent satellites orbiting in a dense formation around a star. A large cloud of such emitters could alter the light emitted by a star, and disrupt its luminance when observed from outside. And thus we are back to Tabby’s star, which experiences a significant drop in luminosity every 750 days.

Boyajian’s paper examined several hypothesis for this strange dimming, from instrument defects to an asteroid belt pileup and even impacts of a planetary scale. The most likely natural cause, she theorized, would be a close pass of another star that pulled a sea of comets into orbit around the star. Enough of them could cause this kind of dimming. But Boyajian only considered natural sources in her paper.

The SETI Institute has naturally taken an interest. The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence has long been analysing the sky searching for radio waves indicating potential life elsewhere, and this has been one of the very few times they’re been approached by astronomers with data that is very atypical. On 19 October 2015 they had begun using the Allen Telescope Array to search for radio waves at frequencies associated with technological activity, with potential follow ups if something interesting is detected. Still, SETI’s philosophy is that the alien hypothesis is the last resort. 

Latest theories indicate that this phenomenon could merely be an artefact of the star having an oblate disc, resulting in gravity darkened regions and creating the non-uniform dips in flux, but so far, none of the theories have been verified.  It remains human nature to speculate, and, after all, if these are megastructures, they would have been built already in the 6^th century CE. Only time will reveal what has happened since. 

The stars started us on our quest for knowledge. It seems they still have a few things to teach us yet.

Times They Are A-Changin’

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 22 October, 2015.

In 1779, Thomas Malthus noted, “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” Malthus described an apocalyptic vision of mankind where population growth overshot resources, and humanity faced a worldwide famine.

But Thomas Mathus was a man of his time, and during the 18^th and 19^th century, this population-resource mismatch never occurred. In fact, at the start of the 19^th century, the human population of Earth had barely reached 1 billion in number. The world experienced the industrial revolution, and with the commensurate increase in human output, came an increase in the human population. 

By 1927, the world population had doubled to two billion. Two world wars had curbed growth a bit, but not by much. The three billion milestone had been reached by 1959, but it was only when we had added another billion beings by 1974 that Malthus’s theories had been dusted off, and fear of the Malthusian Catastrophe reached its peak.

And yet…

Here we are.  On 11 July 1987 we reached 5 billion. On 12 October 1999 6 billion people roamed the Earth. And on 31 October 2011, 7 billion human beings were alive at the same time. Did Malthus make a critical error?

This has been argued many times over the years – from those who pointed out that Malthus failed to provide evidence for any natural tendency of a population to overwhelm its ability to provide for itself, to those who argued that population levels determine agricultural methods and not vice versa. This has amounted to a solid body of evidence for the aphorism that ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’ Even a 2002 study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation indicated that world food production would be in excess of the needs of the population by as soon as 2030.

 But while resources and population size might not be the problem Malthus envisaged, there is another factor to population that Malthus did not consider, but which might prove the greatest challenge of our time. Demographics.

Because along with a greater population, our technological prowess has given us longer lives – also a significant contributor to population growth. When humanity reached 4 billion people, only 231 million of them were over 65, and 1.5 billion were under 15. When we reached 7 billion, 530 million were over 65, while 1.8 billion were under 15.

A side effect of our reduced mortality is not only a reduced child mortality (resulting in fewer children), but also an increasingly aged population.  While our agricultural resources might be enough to support the burgeoning human population, changing demographics make it more difficult for the young to support the senior population.

In 2025, a mere 10 years from now, the senior population of the United States is projected to be larger than the young, and when we examine trends going forward, this neo-Malthusian catastrophe is awaiting all countries. After all, as the population of the elderly rise, and the youth population falls, there is increasing pressure on the pension and health systems of all nations. Now already we are seeing alarming rises in the costs of treating the so-called ‘lifestyle’ diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Namibia is just starting on the journey towards this problem. Currently, we’re a very young population, with 32% under 15, and only 4% over 65. But the United States moved from a similar demographic to their current one in less than 75 years. Namibia might be late to the party, but we’ll quickly catch up. 

And then, in the words of the incomparable Bob Dylan, it is time that we gather our people, as the waters around us have definitely grown – we’d better start swimming or we’ll sink like a stone. Because the times are definitely a-changin’.

Riding a Tiger

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 15 October, 2015.

After the 1929 stock market crash, the world was dumped into chaos. For years, the Great Depression lingered, and once recovery was in sight, the Second World War erupted. It is thus no surprise that the seminal work on the Great Crash of 1929 was only penned in 1955, by John Kenneth Galbraith. 

One of the most enduring concepts put forth by Galbraith in his treatise, was the ‘bezzle’. Principally, this gave the crime of embezzlement an economic view. In Galbraith’s interpretation, embezzlement is quite a unique crime, in that a period of time from weeks to years may elapse between when the crime occurred, and when it was discovered. 

There thus exists a period of time where the embezzler has the gains of his or her crime, but the victim is unaware of it, and thus has no feeling of loss. The economy, in effect, has an increase in perceived wealth from the view of its participants. Galbraith posited that this mismatch between actual and perceived wealth, or an ‘inventory’ of embezzlement, existed in all economies, and he named this the ‘bezzle’.

The ‘bezzle’ is naturally larger during the good times, but shrinks during the bad. After all, during the good times, people are more relaxed, they trust one another and money keeps flowing. But when times get tough, money is watched like a hawk. Everyone is assumed to be untrustworthy until they are proven otherwise, and audits get tougher – the ‘bezzle’ is reduced.

During the last financial crisis, the extent of the ‘bezzle’ became gradually known. Once the good times stopped, the megafraud cases of Allen Standford and Bernard Madoff were suddenly exposed, and perceived gains by large companies were revealed to be actual losses. Even in South Africa, we can see Eskom ‘bezzle’ suddenly being exposed when excess capacity was required for growth. 

But in Eskom’s case, this might actually be an explanation of the ‘febezzle’. Coined by Charles Munger, the long-time business associate of Warren Buffet, this expands the meaning of ‘bezzle’ to a ‘functionally-equivalent bezzle’ or ‘febezzle’. Munger expanded the definition to include perceived wealth created by legal means – essentially when two parties believe they are creating wealth for both, when in fact it’s simply a transfer of wealth that the losing party has not realised yet. 

Stock market bubbles are a prime example of this, since wealth in a high-priced stock seems real enough, but when the bubble bursts, you suddenly find your wealth is worth about as much as the paper it is printed on. This ‘febezzle’ however, does not only affect individuals. After all, governments themselves enter into transactions in the market for their debt, essentially borrowing from the future. It is usually when the future comes to pass that the ‘febezzle’ disappears.

In the emerging markets, this manifests as dollar-based loans made at a time the economy was strong, and the exchange rate reasonable. The loans and the products and infrastructure they fund seem cheap now, and we all seem to benefit. But when the tide of investment pulls back, the exchange rate suffers, and the debt burden become onerous, only then does the ‘febezzle’ pop, and now countries such as South Africa have serious worries about their fiscal situation, their investment-grade rating, and their future growth.

In Africa in particular, corruption is the ‘bezzle’ we usually build up during the good times, and only crack down on when times are tough. Namibia, specifically, is currently experiencing good times, and it is admirable that the current government is still focusing on its elimination and the promotion of good governance. As we see in the global market, tough times might be coming sooner than we think. 

It was perhaps Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services (India’s Enron) who put it best, “It’s like riding a tiger, and not knowing how to get off without being eaten.” While the ‘bezzle’ might temporarily make people feel better, since perceived wealth has gone up, in the end it is actual wealth that matters.

China Syndrome

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 8 October, 2015.

In nuclear physics, China Syndrome refers to a hypothetical loss of coolant accident that causes a severe meltdown of the core of the reactor – a reaction so hot and self-sustaining that this core would hypothetically burn through all containment, sinking and burning through to the ‘other end of the planet,’ i.e. to China, colloquially. 

Emerging markets recently have seen a different kind of ‘China Syndrome,’ one that works in a different direction. Because the Chinese economic meltdown is now burning a financial hole in the world, and the emerging market is feeling the heat on the other side of the world. After the 2008 financial crisis, China was the bulwark of the world economy, leading an unprecedented surge in investment that dragged the world economy from the doldrums. But as the saying goes, all good things…

The Chinese economy is perhaps struggling – compared to its quarter century of 7% growth it has had. When Chinese growth dipped below that 7% benchmark, chaos soon followed. Their stock market has since reversed all gains made during the year, with the Shanghai Composite down to 60% of its peak during June this year.

Needless to say, the Chinese slowdown necessitated the devaluation of the Yuan several times during the last few months, but that was not the end of it. When the Great Engine of Growth slows down, its fuel needs drop as well. Commodities needed for infrastructure suddenly found themselves without a buyer, and commodity prices worldwide dropped as supply exceeded demand. 

Of course, all these commodities had to be mined somehow, and the resource-rich emerging markets were all too ready to supply when demand was booming. Cheap, low-interest rate US Dollar loans were easy to come by in the boom, and funded operational expansions that are now in excess of what is needed. And here is where the penny has dropped.

Emerging markets remain export-dominated economies, and when dollar-denominated exports drop, the supply of dollars to a country’s foreign exchange drops as well. But those dollar-denominated loans still need to be repaid – the demand for dollars remain high. Inevitably, market forces in a floating exchange rate regime take over, and emerging markets have seen sharp devaluations of their local currencies.

In an economic boom, it is easy to forget to price in the foreign currency risk when taking out a low interest rate loan in US Dollars. A loan taken out at 5% in US dollars at N$ 10 per USD suddenly becomes a loan at effectively 6% when the NAD/USD exchange rate rises to N$ 12 per USD. And as a currency devalues, more and more local currency is required to service foreign loans, exacerbating the issues an emerging economy faces.

And so the emerging market burns in the contagion. The once mighty BRICS that were widely hailed as a potential new economic power has been brought to its knees by the China syndrome. Brazil’s sovereign bonds were downgraded to junk bond status just last month. Russia’s economy is contracting in the face of low oil prices, and South Africa, as we are so keenly aware, is struggling with the issues mentioned above. Only India, thus far, has been holding up.

And perhaps it is the Indian lesson emerging markets should take to heart. For too long, emerging markets have been export-dominated, selling precious resources. India has developed their own, internal middle-class market that can keep its economy going even during turbulent times. It is this challenge that China is currently struggling with, and that Africa in particular is working towards.

It is thus quite commendable that the Namibian Ministry of Trade and Industry is actively promoting the development of local industries via licensing Export Processing Zone enterprises, and stimulating the development of local industries that ultimately will become the backbone of the Namibian economy going forward. 

After all, just because emerging markets are struggling, does not mean they always will. A billion people in the developing world have managed to make the transition into a service and manufacturing economy. With good governance we can all craft an economy to ensure our own well-being. This crisis has merely shown in relief, where we can do better.