How's this for a provocative thought: what if the very earthly economic cycles somehow responded to the solar cycle?

Unusual as this may sound, actually there is evidence of a relationship between the two.

The solar cycle is produced by dynamo processes within the Sun. Sunspots correspond to temporary concentrations of magnetic fields in its photosphere and their occurrences have been recorded for hundreds of years as a measure of solar activity, with the cycle period typically averaging about 11 years. The peak occurs when there is the highest number of sunspots in any given cycle.

Those cycles can affect us in many ways. Increased solar activity brings about extreme ultraviolet and x-ray emissions from the Sun, which in turn produces dramatic effects in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Increases in the number of solar flares and coronal mass ejections can cause problems to sensitive instruments in space and potentially to electric grids down here. There is also evidence that the Earth's climate heats and cools as solar activity rises and falls.