SEARCH BLOG: MICHIGAN TAXES
In today's Detroit Free Press website, Tom Walsh posted an article implying that people were over-reacting to the new service tax and taxes in general for Michigan.
One of those "over-reacting" readers wrote the following:
notaxYeah, that's a little anger.
Mr. Walsh appears to be incredulous as to why we are so angry with regard to having our taxes increased at a time when this state has the highest unemployment in the nation.
Well Mr. Walsh here are a few reasons.
Commie Granholm said we have not had a tax increase in over 12 years and we taxpayers have little patience for a LIAR!
Michigan has had 12 years of tax cuts------------------------FALSE
Michigan’s income tax was 4.6% before----------------------TRUE
Michigan’s income tax is now 3.9%-----------------------------TRUE
When Michigan voters lowered income tax from 4.6% to 3.9% Sales tax was 4%-------------TRUE
Prior to Michigan lowering income tax to 3.9% there was no 8.6% real estate transfer tax—TRUE
After Michigan lowered income tax, sales tax was raised to 6%--------------------------------------TRUE
After Michigan lowered income tax, new transfer tax was created------------------------------------TRUE
With Michigan lowering income tax and raising sales tax and transfer tax, the States revenue was the same meaning the lower income tax was offset by the increase in the other two taxes. -----------------TRUE
Now Michigan is the ONLY state to have both a service tax and a transfer tax in the nation. ------TRUE
Don’t believe me, listen to Granholm grudgingly acknowledge it on audio.
Here is the web site to the Frank Beckman show:
Also listen near the end of the clip where commie Granholm claims she never made a pledge to not raise taxes and then listen to Frank Beckman play the clip where in fact she did state that.
http://www.wjr.net/Article.asp?id=488295&spid=6525
_________________
On October 16th 2006 during the third debate. Channel 7 reporter asked Granholm if she would raise taxes. Her answer: "NO"
Or maybe the taxpayers are upset that the Governor who claims to feel our pain doesn’t give us a break at the gas pump.
the figures below were based on 80 cents a gallon so triple the states take of over $1.29 a gallon times the number of average gallons in a car of say 18 equals $23.22 cents a fillup we are paying to the state.
Michigan
• Federal Tax 18.3
• State Excise Tax 19
• State Sales tax 6%
In Michigan the sales tax is applied to the actual sales cost + Federal Tax. So Michigan not only is taxing gasoline for non-road use (the sales tax revenue goes to the general fund - not roads) but also is taxing a tax.
Total taxes per gallon assuming a sale price of 80 cents per gallon is ((80 + 18.3) * .06) + 18.3 + 19 = 43 cents per gallon.
Or just maybe the taxpayers of this state do not like a commie at the helm who truly thinks our money is HER money to spend as she please with whom she pleases.
COMMIE GRANHOLM QUOTE:
"It's not just about me, me, me. It's about investing in Michigan," she said. "Where's the notion of the common good? It's been lost over decades because there's been ... this idea that it's your money, it's your money.
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF
FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071007/NEWS06/710070598
SEARCH BLOG: POLITICS
The Christian Science Monitor ran an article describing the dilemma of Christian conservatives with regard to Rudy Giuliani and the selection of a Republican candidate for president.
"We are struggling about what to do in a very difficult election cycle," said Gary Bauer, president of American Values, at a Monitor breakfast Wednesday. The nonprofit group describes itself as "defending life and traditional marriage" as well as standing against "liberal education and cultural forces."Mr. Giuliani is one of the front-runners in the pre-primary scramble for the Republican Party's nomination to be their candidate in the 2008 election. His sticking point with these Christian conservatives is his "liberal" stance on abortion... pretty much willing to let things stand as they are. Despite Giuliani's positions on social issues,
"If you look at regular church attendees across the country, Giuliani has a clear plurality of those voters," Bauer said. He added, "Now there could be a number of reasons for that. One is they don't fully realize his position on the social issues. The other possibility, though, is that some of these voters have decided that defending Western civilization is a moral issue, too."One doesn't have to be Christian or Christian conservative to feel that abortion is a most unfortunate, if not immoral, action.
On the other hand, I haven't seen that much evidence that the Christian conservatives are willing to do much more than preach morality when it comes to dealing with the issue of poor, abused, turn-them-into-uneducated-criminals children who are born to women clearly unable or unwilling to accept the responsibility of parenthood.Guiliani doesn't have the "personal credentials" to make him the ideal Christian conservative candidate. On the other hand, most Christian conservative public leaders would make really bad presidents with their "my way or the highway" approach to life.
How many of those children who end up in the "social services" system receive support or acceptance or adoption from those same Christian conservatives?
Guiliani has demonstrated his effectiveness and principled nature in public service. One must ask if having integrity and being effective is less important in the selection of a presidential candidate than adhering to the beliefs of a specific religious group.I don't know if Mr. Guiliani is the best person to lead this country, but so far I haven't seen anything related to public service issues that are anywhere near as negative as some of his potential opponents.
And the fact that he won't change his positions to placate a special interest group seems a rather large positive to me. He certainly hasn't shown a willingness to accept funding from shady sources or gained a reputation as one who places personal power above public good.We'll see if the Christian conservative coalition gets both their defender of the faith as well as one who is an effective defender of this nation. I can live with the latter.
SEARCH BLOG: JOBS
Appearing in The Detroit News....
SEARCH BLOG: GLOBAL WARMING
Climate change... global warming... record temperatures... icecaps melting... cities and bears drowning... malaria everywhere... no air conditioning... the world a swamp of squalor... Canadians dying of heat stroke in December [I just threw that in].
No these are just political statements according to a British court.
Is this court just another part of the "denier" conspiracy? Can courts really understand science? Will this spoil Al Gore's chances for a Nobel Peace Prize? What will Michael Moore show in his next documentary? Inquiring minds want to know!
Before everyone's shorts get in a wad, the court was simply pointing out that there were one or two... okay nine... major factual errors or misrepresentations in Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth. The problem is that those who have endeavored to challenge the film and the resulting rush to spend trillions of dollars to save the world from the fates depicted in the film, have been vilified as worse than Nazis by those who defended the films premises.
The debate was declare over. Deniers were liars. Temperature histories were manipulated and adjusted to support the film's contentions. Weather records were "restricted."Perhaps now is the time for the real scientists using the real scientific method and publishing documents using real peer reviewers to reexamine what is really known about earth's climate system. Let's use those trillions of dollars to ... lower taxes? improve health care? improve our cities? educate some new scientists and politicians?
SEARCH BLOG: WEATHER
It was unusually hot in the north and east yesterday. Temperatures hovered around 90° in the Detroit area. This was just 4° below the Michigan record for October of 94° set back in 1922 at St. Joseph. Yes, it was hot yesterday and hot 85 years ago.
Today is supposed to be about 15° cooler and tomorrow another 15° cooler than today. By Thursdays, we'll be about 10° cooler than normal.
Sunday, I was on the lake in shorts. Yesterday, I cut the grass in shorts. Today I will golf in shorts. Tomorrow I'll be scrounging around for my sweaters.
Hey, it's fall in Michigan. Weather changes.
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SEARCH BLOG: CLIMATE CHANGE
On September 28, I talked about data manipulation and "cherrypicking"... using only data that supports a biased contention and ignoring other data that do not support the bias.
In an admittedly technical post, Steve McIntyre takes the issue one step farther... rather than not picking certain data, now data will be "restricted" so that anyone who doubts proclamations based on those data will not be able to independently analyze them.
That's taking "Trust Us" to a whole new level.Since when are weather data confidential?
Since global warming analysis moved from the scientific to the political arena...
SEARCH BLOG: MICHIGAN TAXES
If you read my profile on the sidebar, you will see that I'm retired and running a small business in Michigan.
The state's economy has badly affected the business climate and now our governor and legislators have enacted an onerous business service tax that has me seriously thinking about shutting our business down. After 25 years, it just doesn't seem worth the time or effort to be a Michigan business anymore.That's unfortunate because those clients we serve will lose a significant opportunity to earn money from their investments, we'll lose the extra income... and Michigan will lose taxes from our income and our clients' income. This is just one small example of how short-sighted the government's approach is in their "investment" in Michigan marketing spin.
Our decision isn't final yet and I don't want to make it out of anger toward politicians, but let's just say that the outcome is very likely going to be lose-lose-lose. Well, there is always social security... maybe...
SEARCH BLOG: GLOBAL WARMING
Some of you may have been skeptical [I hate to abuse that word too much] about my last post regarding the cause of Arctic ice reduction.
Obviously trying to deflect a Congressional investigation about the correlation between the cumulative number of satellites launched and the increase in global average temperatures after the 1960s, NASA has come up with another far-fetched explanation... it's the wind.Well, who's gonna believe that?!
SEARCH BLOG: GLOBAL WARMING
NASA and NOAA have shown that earth is warming rapidly since the 1960s.
SEARCH BLOG: FAMILY
The posts are a little light this week while my 90-year old mother is in town for a visit.
She gets around a little slower each year, but is surprisingly well and independent. I can only hope for the same. My wife's 85-year old mother was here for part of the time, but had to leave a couple of days earlier than expected.
Life's a little cruel when the body begins to fail while the mind remains nimble. But there's not much in the way of alternatives.
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SEARCH BLOG: ENVIRONMENT
Six of us took a little day trip to Michigan's "thumb"... the area about 100-150 miles directly north of Detroit. Unlike the Detroit area, the "thumb" appears to be doing fairly well economically. Of course, this is primarily farming area so the population is sparse in comparison.
Part of the trip was to Frankenmuth, a town settled by Germans in the mid-1800s and making a living as a faux-Bavarian village. Lots of "family style" restaurants and chocolate shops. Very clean; very touristy.
Then it was on to the Deckerville area. This area received notoriety several years ago when the Nichols brothers dominated national news related to the Oklahoma federal building bombing. There was no lingering remnant of that anywhere. Instead, one found large, well-managed farms with thousands of acres of corn and soybeans spread across land that is so flat you don't need a level to build something.
One of these farms belongs to my sister-in-law's parents. This farm has been around for well over a century and three generations work on it with a fourth beginning their lives there.The most obvious task occurring during our visit was announced by the pungent odor of manure... everywhere.
It's not an easy life. Work starts well before dawn when over 100 cows have to be milked. Then there are countless jobs around the farm during the day which change depending on the time of year. It's corn harvesting time now.
It used to be that when farmers cleaned out the barn, they would stack up the manure and then spread it around the field for fertilizer every so often. They can't do that anymore.I suppose that is for the environmental best... but somehow turning a few square miles into the aroma of an outhouse doesn't seem that beneficial.
Now the manure has to be stored in deep, clay-lined pits. When the pit is full, the farmer calls in the pumper who has an enormous tanker truck with tractor-like tires. The slurry is pumped out of the pit and the tanker heads for the fields where it is sprayed over the ground [these are empty fields... not those with standing crops].
It's what the farmers used to do in smaller batches, but the government forces them to do in large doses... and pay someone else to do it.
SEARCH BLOG: MICHIGAN TAXES
Michigan has become the poster child for government that believes all good things comes from taxing its citizens.
When things are bad, make them worse.It's amazing that so many people... and government officials(?)... believe that just the state government must continue to expand while the economy of the state shrinks. By some strange accounting logic, a $2 billion increase in the budget offset by a $440 million cost reduction is considered good management... and a reduction in government.
What seems to be the case is that some believe a reduction in the rate of increase is a reduction. What taxpayers want is an absolute year-to-year reduction in government spending. Cut the damn budget by 5% and learn to live with it.That's not going to happen in our lifetimes, however. So we get more taxes. The income tax may be burdensome, but it is understandable and relatively simple. The new service tax will be a source of anger, confusion, and [probably] avoidance.
The service tax problem is two-fold:When will Michigan government realize that taxes are real costs to real people and real businesses... not simply revenue enhancements to the state coffers?
- Many highly visible "services" are exempt.
- Unlike retail sales taxes which can be legally exempted between businesses as part of the final retail sales chain [manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer], business-to-business service [consulting or subcontracting] transactions apparently will be charged at every step of the way... taxing taxes so to speak. This aspect of the service tax has to be eliminated before the tax goes into effect or it will drive significant business out of Michigan.
SEARCH BLOG: MICHIGAN TAXES
Surprise! Michigan legislators decided that maybe it was okay to dump more burden on an already down-and-out state economy. Was it any surprise that the vote was pretty much along party lines? From the Detroit Free Press:
Let's summarize:Here's how the Michigan House and Senate voted on key bills before them Sunday night and this morning:
HOUSE VOTE ON INCOME TAXES
The House passed the income tax measure 57-52. Democrats hold a 58-52 edge in the House, but three Democrats — Martin Griffin and Michael Simpson of the Jackson area and Lisa Wojno of Warren — voted against it. Two Republicans, Chris Ward of Brighton and Ed Gaffney of Grosse Pointe Farms, voted in favor of the proposal.
SENATE VOTE ON INCOME TAXES
The vote was 19-19, and Lt. Gov. John Cherry broke the tie. Four Republicans voted for the higher income tax — Patricia Birkholz of Saugatuck, Tom George of Portage, Ron Jelinek of Three Oaks and Gerald Van Woerkom of Norton Shores. Democrats Glenn Anderson of Westland and Dennis Olshove of Warren voted against the tax increase.
HOUSE VOTE ON SALES TAX ON SERVICES
No House Republicans voted for the bill placing the sales tax on services — a proposal stiffly opposed by the business community. All Democrats did, except for Reps. Marc Corriveau of Northville and Kate Ebli of Monroe, who voted no. The final vote was xxx to xxx. [sic]
SENATE VOTE ON SALES TAX ON SERVICES
The final tally was 19-19, with Lt. Gov. John Cherry again casting the tie-breaking vote. Three Republicans voted for it -- Wayne Kuipers of Holland, Roh Jelinek of Three Oaks and Valde Garcia of Howell. One Democratic -- Glenn Anderson of Westland -- voted against it.
Taxpayers situationIt's difficult to find how the 2008 budget bottom line actually compares with the 2007 budgeted/actual spending [strangely, the budget numbers seem hard to find]. It looks as if the 2008 budget is $43.4 billion, but that could be changing minute-to-minute. Compare that with the $41.7 billion approved for the 10/2006 - 10/2007 period.Michigan budget situation
- Foreclosure rates 3rd highest in nation
- Unemployment the highest in the nation
- ???
That works out to a year-to-year state budget increase of almost 4.1%.That giant sucking sound you hear is the state government vacuuming out your savings account... or food budget.
SEARCH BLOG: MICHIGAN TAXES
As a Michigan resident, I have a vested interest in the financial machinations of our State government.
The Detroit Free Press newspaper headline for today was, "Close To A Deal."It looks like the governor will mostly get her way and income taxes will go up and the 6% sales tax will be extended to services [originally the discussion was about a 2% service tax].
The Governor will not be denied what she sees as her due.However, as reported by Nolan Finley of The Detroit News, not all government in Michigan feels the need to expand continually. An examination of the differences between the State's government and Oakland County's [biggest county government] comes up with these differences:
Why bother to plan ahead or take help when you can just take the taxpayers money?The state begins anew each year with a revenue estimate, budgets spending to consume every dime and then adjourns to watch everything fall apart in short order.
Oakland budgets two years at a time and works with five-year revenue projections. Right now, [Bob] Daddow [Oakland County] sees a $10 million deficit in 2010, so he's building in cuts over the next three years to wipe it out before it becomes a crisis.
Oakland closes its books at the end of each quarter. It knows right away if the budget is running off track and can adjust spending. The state, by contrast, didn't discover $70 million in unbudgeted spending until well after the last fiscal year ended. The shortfall got rolled into this year's deficit.
Employee benefits are reformed to match cost increases. Patterson side-stepped a gubernatorial veto to set up a health care fund similar to the one agreed to by GM and the UAW.
The liability for retiree health care is now off the books. The state, meanwhile, faces hundreds of millions in future health care obligations, with no clue where the money will come from.
And the county doesn't allow government to pork up on state and federal freebies. By law, Oakland kills any grant-funded program when the grant runs out. The state too often keeps the program when it loses the free money and builds the cost into the general fund.
Creative use of technology continues to save Oakland money and is shared with local communities and school districts. An offer to share it with the state as well got no takers.
The difference between a badly run business and Michigan state government is that the business goes out of existence.The Governor's philosophy:
I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it... I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it... I want it, I want it, I want it I want it... I want it, I want it... now! [It is your money]Hey, it's a lot easier than managing well.
SEARCH BLOG: STUPIDITY HAS ITS OWN REWARDS
You can't make up a better example.
Detroit police are investigating an attempted carjacking in front of the department's headquarters on Beaubien in which the would-be victim opened fire on a gunman, killing him...
SEARCH BLOG: CLIMATE CHANGE
With all of the uproar caused by Steven McIntyre's analysis of NASA/NOAA's temperature records and the revelation that not only don't climate models fit observations, but the data used in those models may well be improperly manipulated by NASA/NOAA itself... it may have occurred to some that any conclusions drawn from the data and the models may be unreliable ;-).
Sure, that's an understatement... if you hadn't already guessed.There certainly is evidence that the decade of the 90s and this decade are warmer than the decades of the 60s and 70s which were cooler than the decades of the 30s and 40s which were warmer than the decades of the teens and 20s.
Is there a pattern developing here?But when you look beyond that there appears to be a north-south pattern to the changes as well. Quite honestly, given the sad shape of weather monitoring stations and the re-siting that seems to occur so often, it seems that the records are best seen as approximations of the temperature conditions around the world... which is evidenced by NASA/NOAA's continual attempts to "correct" the actual records.
The north-south pattern was evidenced in the first climatalarmist episode in the 70s when the northern hemisphere was cited as evidence of an impending ice age. Watch the video on the sidebar under the heading: MINDS CHANGE - TACTICS DON'T. Then, the southern hemisphere was just fine.So, let's review the points here:
The current climatalarmist episode cites the northern hemisphere warming, including northern polar ice reduction, as evidence of the impending steam bath age(?). The problem now is that the southern hemisphere has shown signs of cooling with snow in Brazil and thickening ice in Antarctica.
SEARCH BLOG: AUTOMOBILES
The United Auto Workers and GM have reached a new contract agreement that will, no doubt, be ratified by the UAW members.
The two-day strike was nothing more than posturing, as I said the other day. Neither side was willing or able to handle an extended strike which would have been a lose-lose proposition.The UAW made some concessions that will allow GM to become more competitive with the non-union lower labor costs of the Japanese and Korean manufacturers who have populated the right-to-work southern states. GM gives assurances that it will not ship out the remaining U.S. jobs to Kuala Lumpur or some other "exotic" location where workers are uneducated, unprotected, and underpaid.
That doesn't mean the U.S. manufacturers will close up shop in foreign nations. After all, if the Chinese decide to use lead paint on the fenders, no one will worry about someone licking the fender and getting sick.Now that the UAW will be funding and managing future health care plans, it is likely that there will be increasing pressure to reduce costs because UAW members will see such care as a cost more than a benefit. I imagine there are a lot of people quietly smiling at GM about that.
That's a lot different from the attitude people would have with "free" government-funded health care. It's harder to make the connect with the taxes that are paid...
SEARCH BLOG: IRAN
Last week, regarding a post about Iran's President Ahmadinejad I wrote that:
One must presume that President Bollinger will invite some Holocaust survivors to debate Ahmadinejad... or would that be using the podium for ideological purposes? Can it be that President Bollinger is so vehemently opposed to U.S. foreign policy that he is now grasping for anyone who represents the opposite of what our policy stands for.A reader of that post provided, in the comments, a video link to Dr. Bollinger's "introduction" of Ahmadinejad that shows Dr. Bollinger berating the Iranian president. In that regard, Dr. Bollinger acquitted himself on the positive side.
No other town, after all, gives the firebrand bad boy of Western-Islamic relations the platforms, the polemics, and the attention that Iran experts say he craves. These far outstrip, experts add, the authority and influence he actually wields, since Mr. Ahmadinejad does not have the power of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.So, even though Ahmadinejad may have only convinced a few students of his rightousness [a few is too many], the real damage was to bolster his image as a strong leader who is able to travel into hostile territory and defend his brand of insanity against his adversaries.
In the limelight, Ahmadinejad has been a man under attack – from the outcry that followed the Iranian leader's proposal earlier this month to lay a wreath at ground zero, to the condemnation that met him at Columbia University Monday, to the scrutiny given his speech at the United Nations Tuesday.
According to specialists in Iranian affairs, he couldn't have asked for more.
Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad only makes sense, Mr. Clawson of the Washington Institute says, if the university has a policy of holding forums with controversial speakers. He and others noted that Jim Gilchrist, head of the anti-illegal-immigration vigilante group the Minuteman Project, was recently told he couldn't appear at a speaking engagement.Perhaps at Columbia some speech is more free than others.
Regardless, it is difficult to find the positive aspect of Professor Bollinger's pet project...
SEARCH BLOG: AUTOMOBILE
The United Auto Workers have called a strike against GM. That's their right. GM will simply wait for negotiations to resume and progress to be made. That's their right.
The union members will lose significant money during times that are already pretty tough for many. GM will lose some production on cars that are popular now. The union members may be able to recoup their lost income if the strike doesn't go on too long and they can get some overtime to get production caught up to demand. GM may be able to prevent lost retail sales if the strike doesn't go on too long and they can boost production temporarily.So right now, it's pretty much posturing on both sides.
I suspect that there are many who will see this as one more example of why American automobile manufacturers and unions are irrelevant for the future American automotive market. Union people will have no love for GM and non-union people will think that union-produced vehicles are over-priced and of poor quality... being made by greedy, lazy workers.You'd think that both sides could see the writing on the wall by now. Perhaps they are just too close to the wall and writing appears fuzzy.
The Federal Reserve sees no need to cut interest rates in the light of adverse recent economic data, Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday.
The Fed chairman said ”to date, the incoming data have supported the view that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing in core inflation”.July 21, 2007 My guess is that if there is an interest rate change, a cut is more likely than an increase. The key variables to be watching at this point are real estate prices and the inventory of unsold homes.
"Should the elevated turbulence persist, it would increase the possibility of further tightening in financial conditions for households and businesses," he said.December 11, 2007 Somehow the Fed misses the obvious."Uncertainties about the economic outlook are unusually high right now," he said. "These uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking -- nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago."
http://www.reuters.com/
December 13, 2007 [from The Christian Science Monitor]
[Image from: CNNMoney.com]
"The odds of a recession are now above 50 percent," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "We are right on the edge of a recession in part because of the Fed's reluctance to reduce interest rates more aggressively." [see my comments of September 11]January 7, 2008 The real problem now is that consumers can't rescue the economy and manufacturing, which is already weakening, will continue to weaken. We've gutted the forces that could avoid a downturn. The question is not whether there will be a recession, but can it be dampened sufficiently so that it is very short.
“The question is not whether we will have a recession, but how deep and prolonged it will be,” said David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. “Even if the Fed’s moves are going to work, it will not show up until the later part of 2008 or 2009.”January 17, 2008 A few days ago, Anna Schwartz, nonagenarian economist, implicated the Federal Reserve as the cause of the present lending crisis [from the Telegraph - UK]:
The high priestess of US monetarism - a revered figure at the Fed - says the central bank is itself the chief cause of the credit bubble, and now seems stunned as the consequences of its own actions engulf the financial system. "The new group at the Fed is not equal to the problem that faces it," she says, daring to utter a thought that fellow critics mostly utter sotto voce.January 22, 2008 The cut has become infected and a limb is in danger. Ben Bernanke is panicking and the Fed has its emergency triage team cutting rates... this time by 3/4%. ...
Individuals and businesses need stability in their financial cost structures so that they can plan effectively and keep their ships afloat. Wildly fluctuating rates... regardless of what the absolute levels are... create problems. Either too much spending or too much fear. It's just not that difficult to comprehend. Why has it been so difficult for the Fed?
Current Activity
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| | "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight." - Thomas Jefferson
As of Sept. 15, the current solar minimum ranks third all-time in the amount of spotless days with 717 since 2004. There have been 206 spotless days in 2009, which is 14th all-time. But there are still more than 100 days left in the year, and Perry expects that number to climb. Perry, who studies sunspots and solar activity in his spare time, received an undergraduate degree in physics at Kansas State University and a Ph.D in physics and astronomy at The University of Kansas. He also has spent time as a meteorologist.
From Icecap
