Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Allaway and I'm Joe. So, Joe, you know
Speaker 1: what I like to do during uncertain times, times of trouble.
Speaker 1: Play with your dog, play with your puppy. Yes, but
Speaker 1: that's a relatively new development. Um, But for a long time,
Speaker 1: I really like reading history books whenever the world seems
Speaker 1: a little bit crazy. I like going back in time
Speaker 1: and finding other moments where things seem just as crazy. See.
Speaker 1: I like stress eating when I when the world is
Speaker 1: really bad. Yeah, stress eating is also enjoyable. But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring it up is because in the current
Speaker 1: situation we've seen the coronavirus pandemic, there are a lot
Speaker 1: out of historic parallels to this particular outbreak. So almost
Speaker 1: immediately when this whole thing started, people started reaching back
Speaker 1: to the Black Death of the Middle Ages. We also
Speaker 1: had people talking about parallels with the Spanish influenza pandemic
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighteen. Lots of people looking at history to
Speaker 1: try to figure out what's going on right now and
Speaker 1: what the economy might actually look like once this outbreak
Speaker 1: has subsided. Yeah, that's exactly right, Especially um, the Spanish flue,
Speaker 1: the Spanish influenza of nineteen eighteen. It's been numerous stories
Speaker 1: about that. I guess because maybe of all the different
Speaker 1: like sort of like pandemics we've had in the past,
Speaker 1: we probably have this sort of you know, most accurate
Speaker 1: recollection of like what the medical experts were saying at
Speaker 1: the time. Of course, everyone's seen those charts of the
Speaker 1: second wave of the Spanish flu, so of all the
Speaker 1: you know, lots of but as you say, lots of
Speaker 1: attempt to look at history to figure out what they
Speaker 1: mean for the president, right, and whenever we talk about
Speaker 1: financial history, Uh, there's one guess that we really like
Speaker 1: to have on. We're going to have him on again.
Speaker 1: It's Jamie Cather would a k. A finance history guy
Speaker 1: from O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. He also runs a website called
Speaker 1: investor Amnesia dot com. We've had him on before. We're
Speaker 1: going to have them on again to walk us through
Speaker 1: what we can learn from previous outbreaks or pandemics and
Speaker 1: what they tell us about the current situation. So Jamie,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me back. So Jamie, maybe to begin with,
Speaker 1: you know, Joe mentioned that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been focusing on the Spanish influenza pandemic of nineteen in particular,
Speaker 1: But is there one moment in history that you've focused
Speaker 1: on in your readings and um, and you're studying of
Speaker 1: this topic, one moment of history that is the most
Speaker 1: relevant to our current situation. Um So, I think that,
Speaker 1: like you guys talked about, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: going back to both the Black Death and the Spanish Flu.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of other kind of epidemics and pandemics
Speaker 1: and history that are also interesting, but they're all really different,
Speaker 1: including the Spanish flu. It's fairly different in terms of
Speaker 1: just the disease, but also kind of the time it
Speaker 1: occurred in versus today. So I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of differences more than similarities. But there are some
Speaker 1: interesting trends in both today and the Spanish flu that
Speaker 1: are similar. And one that I found really interesting was
Speaker 1: just there is a paper that talked about the Amazon
Speaker 1: effects that occurred in the Spanish flu, which sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: but um, we've all talked about how kind of sears
Speaker 1: was the original Amazon and there was evidence I think
Speaker 1: it isn't a Federal Reserve paper that showed on a
Speaker 1: monthly basis during in the second wave that was in
Speaker 1: the fall, which is the worst of the three waves.
Speaker 1: That the sales and business activity for Sears, Roebuck and
Speaker 1: montgomer Reward, which had mail order catalogs, increased in the
Speaker 1: worst months of the Spanish flu when more places were
Speaker 1: shut and kind of lockdown was taking place, and then
Speaker 1: as the economy started to reopen again, sales started to
Speaker 1: decline back to normal levels. But there's like the spike
Speaker 1: when people were at home or of ordering through these
Speaker 1: mail order catalogs, just like today everyone orders from Amazon
Speaker 1: while they're kind hunkered down at home. So if if
Speaker 1: if the Sears catalog was the Amazon of that, what's
Speaker 1: what was the peloton of that crisis? I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's some ridiculous contraction that you see
Speaker 1: like some elastic band's workout machine or something. No. No.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of kind of anecdotes like that
Speaker 1: which are just very reminiscent of today. There were things
Speaker 1: like retail foot traffic was down in some areas. But
Speaker 1: what was interesting is that then after the kind reopening
Speaker 1: started to occur, that the some some retailers not all
Speaker 1: obviously reported that the kind of bounced back after the
Speaker 1: reopening made up for more than like the sales from
Speaker 1: when their business had to be shut down, So that
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting. Well, we should note on that note,
Speaker 1: since you brought up retail sales, that we are recording
Speaker 1: this on June at um now about nine in the
Speaker 1: morning and just half an hour ago today we got
Speaker 1: the retail sales for May and they came in way
Speaker 1: better than expected. They basically come in came in double
Speaker 1: on on a month over month basis, about double what
Speaker 1: people were expecting. So as long as we're talking about
Speaker 1: the sort of eco side, the pent up demand equivalent
Speaker 1: of the Spanish Blue, this month's retail sales report would
Speaker 1: bear out once again a sort of similarity. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting to see kind of today and in the Spanish Blue,
Speaker 1: the different industries and types of retailers that did well
Speaker 1: and which ones didn't like today and you see Zoom
Speaker 1: and other companies like that. Clorox stock was rocketing for
Speaker 1: a while, but in Spanish Flu the Federal Reserved paper
Speaker 1: showed that mattress sales actually increased something ridiculous like or
Speaker 1: something because bed rest was such a commonly prescribed like
Speaker 1: cure by doctors for people who had symptoms, and so
Speaker 1: people were just going out and buying mattresses because that
Speaker 1: was what doctors were telling to do, is just stay
Speaker 1: at home, you know, at bed rest. And so randomly
Speaker 1: the mattress industry did very well, while other like retail groceries, um,
Speaker 1: they dropped like a third. And then there were a
Speaker 1: lot of other businesses and kind of towns in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: which is what the Federal Reserve paper focused on, which
Speaker 1: some of their business dropped like se So I'm curious
Speaker 1: and you've touched on this already, but once the Spanish
Speaker 1: flu sort of fell away, once the pandemic ended, did
Speaker 1: we see the economy bounced back, corporate profits bounced back
Speaker 1: and make up the lost income that had occurred during
Speaker 1: the outbreak or was there sort of a permanent hit
Speaker 1: two output. So the problem with this period is like
Speaker 1: there's not as great economic data as you would think,
Speaker 1: which is frustrating obviously because at a time with this
Speaker 1: everyone's looking back to find the economic data. There is some,
Speaker 1: but from what I've read, the effect of the Spanish
Speaker 1: flu was pronounced, but it was over the short term
Speaker 1: and then there was a fairly quick bounce back. Um
Speaker 1: as I said, like some of the examples of retailers
Speaker 1: saying that the business boom once they could reopen made
Speaker 1: up for the losses incurred during the kind of lockdown.
Speaker 1: And there were some businesses that actually reported a increase
Speaker 1: over the prior year in sales, which was remarkable. But
Speaker 1: the economy kind of bounced back. But also you have
Speaker 1: to keep in mind of how much that was due
Speaker 1: to the Spanish flu and how much was due to
Speaker 1: the war ending. But bounce back was kind of short
Speaker 1: lived in itself, because in you then had a recession,
Speaker 1: but in terms of the Spanish flu impact, it seemed
Speaker 1: to be harsh but short lived, and the bounce back
Speaker 1: was pretty swift. Was there any like did they do
Speaker 1: any stimulus or anything like? Was there any economic policy
Speaker 1: to counter the effect? I mean, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's been striking that a lot of people have cited
Speaker 1: for the surprising resilience of the economy and the market
Speaker 1: during this crisis is just the degree to which policymakers
Speaker 1: moved extremely fast, perhaps having learned some of the lessons
Speaker 1: of the Greek recession about a decade ago. Was there
Speaker 1: a economic policy response. Uh that time around, You know,
Speaker 1: there could have been, not from what I've read. I've
Speaker 1: read a number of papers on this, and I don't
Speaker 1: recall seeing there was. It wasn't pronounced enough to be
Speaker 1: kind of prevalent throughout the research that I've read. Yeah, Tracy,
Speaker 1: it's interesting and speaking of history, how often economic stabilization
Speaker 1: measures that we sort of take for granted as making
Speaker 1: sense in it a downturn, more spending, lower rates, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like they just didn't know anything back of the day.
Speaker 1: Like it's a crazy reading back of like past prices.
Speaker 1: How like clueless policy makers looked relative to the sort
Speaker 1: of conventional wisdom today about what you need to bounce back.
Speaker 1: It's always stands out to me when reading about past crises.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. I mean, I guess it depends
Speaker 1: how far back in history you go. The Romans were
Speaker 1: pretty good at that stimulus. But okay, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: off track. I do want to go slightly further back
Speaker 1: and talk about, um, the Middle Ages, the Black Death
Speaker 1: aka the Great Plague. A lot of people have been
Speaker 1: looking at that one and talking about the labor market.
Speaker 1: What might happen to wages and inflation. And I've seen
Speaker 1: different theories on this. So one explanation says that after
Speaker 1: the Great Death, so many people died that there was
Speaker 1: a shortage of labor and wages eventually went up. But
Speaker 1: I've heard other people say that one of the reasons
Speaker 1: wages went up is basically a bunch of the peasants
Speaker 1: revolted and sort of violently forced better earnings for themselves.
Speaker 1: What have you learned so far, Jamie, Like what do
Speaker 1: your readings tell you on that topic? And if you survived,
Speaker 1: then in terms of the Black Death, everything came up
Speaker 1: peasants like it was a great time to be a
Speaker 1: peasant after the Black Death because like you mentioned, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned there there is a lot of disagreement over
Speaker 1: which is crazy to think about it, like something that
Speaker 1: happened hundreds of years ago, and there's still so much
Speaker 1: disagreement among like economic historians of what happened. But from
Speaker 1: what I've read, there seems to be a agreement that
Speaker 1: there was a rise in wages after the Black Death because,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, so many people died, and to put
Speaker 1: some numbers around it, the estimates are between seventeen and
Speaker 1: twenty eight million Europeans and the Black Death was from
Speaker 1: thirteen seven to thirteen fifty three. And what made it
Speaker 1: actually so pronounced in its impact was the fact that
Speaker 1: there wasn't one isolated outbreak. It kept coming back in
Speaker 1: waves for decades. I think Britain experienced thirty different outbreaks
Speaker 1: of the play between thirteen three in like thirteen I
Speaker 1: can't it was like fifty year period. Basically there is
Speaker 1: an outbreak every four years of the play. So it
Speaker 1: just kept coming back, like every time they thought that
Speaker 1: they were done with it, it would just come back,
Speaker 1: and each time it was less was less severe, but
Speaker 1: I mean still was the plague and it was killing
Speaker 1: off people. So it just kept coming back all over year.
Speaker 1: But in England it was basically every four years. But
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, Tracy, because so many people had died.
Speaker 1: What happened was that suddenly all these lords who had
Speaker 1: previously seen over these manner systems where the peasants were
Speaker 1: working the land and the lord would collect rent um
Speaker 1: views from the peasants, they suddenly faced this problem where
Speaker 1: they had all this land previously was a good thing,
Speaker 1: but suddenly now there weren't as many peasants to work.
Speaker 1: Until the land, so the peasants were able to demand
Speaker 1: higher wages, and also they had the ability to kind
Speaker 1: of shop around their services to other lords, which previously
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been the case. But because every lord was
Speaker 1: so desperate to hire people to work their land that
Speaker 1: if the lord a peasant was currently working for it
Speaker 1: didn't offer them better working conditions, living conditions, and wages,
Speaker 1: then they could just go to another lord who would
Speaker 1: be willing to offer them those um conditions. So for
Speaker 1: the peasant and other kind of jobs related to agriculture,
Speaker 1: which outside of the city, nine out of every ten
Speaker 1: people were making a living related to working with soil
Speaker 1: in this period, which is crazy, they could go and
Speaker 1: get higher wages. And there was one example of like
Speaker 1: a plowman who in thirteen he was making two shillings
Speaker 1: a week, and then thirteen forty nine he was making
Speaker 1: three shillings a week. Then in thirteen fifty his wages
Speaker 1: had grown to ten shillings a week. So yeah, you can,
Speaker 1: and that's just like one example of many. The Fed's
Speaker 1: got to raise rates that kind of wage grow the
Speaker 1: ECB of the ECB high grade. But you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until you said it just now that there
Speaker 1: were so many ways. But now I'm looking at like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page of the
Speaker 1: Black Death. It's funny, there's almost no way to talk
Speaker 1: about old timey things without automatically sort of superimposing modern
Speaker 1: conceptions of how the economy worked back onto them. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I joke about the E SPP graz and grades.
Speaker 1: Obviously there was no ECB of but I you know,
Speaker 1: my first question, like the first thing that comes to
Speaker 1: my mind is like that has to be like really
Speaker 1: bad form business capital expenditure plans, because who wants to
Speaker 1: like plan for the future when there's so much uncertainty
Speaker 1: about the next time the Black Death is going to
Speaker 1: come along. Well, there was no ECB, but they did
Speaker 1: try and control wages, which I'll get too in a second. Overall,
Speaker 1: so that was one stark example of the guy quintuple
Speaker 1: in his weekly wages in like two years. But overall,
Speaker 1: the estimates are that wages rose between twenty and from
Speaker 1: the thirteen forties to the thirteen sixties. Again pretty pronounced.
Speaker 1: But one thing that was a counter to this rise
Speaker 1: in nominal wages was there was a pre substantial rise
Speaker 1: in inflation because the gold and silver supply remain constant,
Speaker 1: but the amount of people decimated, so there was just
Speaker 1: a higher ratio of gold and silver per capita, So
Speaker 1: much of those kind of nominal weekly wage gains were
Speaker 1: offset by this inflation. But to Joe's point about ECB
Speaker 1: or some regulatory authority trying to control things, there was
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of There were a lot of upset
Speaker 1: lords because they didn't want to deal with these peasants
Speaker 1: who were suddenly cocky and knew that they had kind
Speaker 1: of had leverage in this situation. And there are all
Speaker 1: of these lords who were complaining about peasants who would
Speaker 1: barely do any work, like they would make a huge
Speaker 1: fuss about being asked to do anything, and if they
Speaker 1: did do jobs that they were doing haphazardly because they
Speaker 1: just knew that the lord wouldn't be able to find
Speaker 1: a replacement for them. So the lords tried to lobby
Speaker 1: the youth authorities to do something about this problem, and
Speaker 1: what ended up happening was the government put out two
Speaker 1: statutes in thirteen forty nine and thirteen fifty one. In
Speaker 1: thirteen forty nine, there was the Ordinance of Laborers and
Speaker 1: then the Statute of Laborers in thirteen fifty one, which
Speaker 1: both were aimed at pertailing wages, and they both stipulated
Speaker 1: that wages for peasants had to be set at pre
Speaker 1: plague levels, and again that was to kind of address
Speaker 1: this situation where people were quickly getting five times what
Speaker 1: they were making before the plague. And there are also
Speaker 1: rules that the peasant couldn't leave and kind of shop
Speaker 1: around his services to other lords, again to prevent this
Speaker 1: issue of people leaving in manners being left or lords
Speaker 1: being left with no one to till their manners. So
Speaker 1: there was no interest rate policy or anything, but there
Speaker 1: is definitely statutes put in place to try and prevent
Speaker 1: the wage growth from spiraling out of control. Wait, so
Speaker 1: just just to be clear who was putting Who is
Speaker 1: making the statute? Which which which, which governing body or
Speaker 1: which royal family or whatever was believe Parliament got it,
Speaker 1: royal family or whatever. I wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: the the inflation point. You mentioned that the gold and
Speaker 1: silver ratio to actual human beings was one thing that
Speaker 1: was pushing prices up. But what did we see during
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu outbreak? Did we see? I mean, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had the same type of coinage obviously, and
Speaker 1: we might have had hit to productivity because of the
Speaker 1: war and various disruptions. But what did we see in
Speaker 1: that one? Again, inflation didn't camp them up as much
Speaker 1: as I thought it would have during um my reading.
Speaker 1: But I know that there was a brief uptick in inflation,
Speaker 1: But it seems like most of the effects for the
Speaker 1: Spanish flu where brief. Even if they're kind of severe,
Speaker 1: they were short lived. Um. But for inflation, I know
Speaker 1: that there was a short uptick, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that there was anything um substantial. Again, this is also
Speaker 1: kind during the war, so the government was doing a
Speaker 1: lot to kind of try and control prices in terms
Speaker 1: of quotas and everything and keeping prices stable, because I
Speaker 1: know that after the war ended some industries, I think
Speaker 1: Cole was one of them where the government wasn't buying
Speaker 1: as much instead of help setting prices and stabilize them,
Speaker 1: that the prices kind of dropped after the war ended.
Speaker 1: Going back to the Black Death for a second again,
Speaker 1: I'm doing Wikipedia history here, which is no no match
Speaker 1: for your war series academic history, but there's a line
Speaker 1: in here this is the Black Death. Most likely originated
Speaker 1: in Central Alasia or East Asia, from where it traveled
Speaker 1: along the Silk Road reaching Crimea by a Does that
Speaker 1: fit with what you've read about the history of the
Speaker 1: Black Death? And I'm curious. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that's come up with this crisis and this virus
Speaker 1: is the degree to which it's sort of has temporarily
Speaker 1: and perhaps long term changed trade routes and certainly trained
Speaker 1: travel routes due to the fact that international travel is
Speaker 1: temporarily almost completely non existent. With these recurring outbreaks in
Speaker 1: Europe over the span of you know, years and years
Speaker 1: and years, were there any changes to trade routes that
Speaker 1: you saw or that you've discovered in terms of the
Speaker 1: relationship between Europe and the rest of the world. Not
Speaker 1: so much in terms of trade route, but what there
Speaker 1: was definitely a noticeable shift in was the type of
Speaker 1: products in like types of agriculture that was burned in England.
Speaker 1: And again it was because if you were a lord
Speaker 1: who had, you know, say a hundred acres and previously
Speaker 1: you had fifty peasants working that land, suddenly you have
Speaker 1: still had the same hundred acres, but maybe there was
Speaker 1: only fifteen peasants that could work to land, so you
Speaker 1: really weren't able to make use of that hundred acres.
Speaker 1: And so what ended up happening, which again was great
Speaker 1: for the peasant, was the lord ended up leasing and
Speaker 1: renting out some of that acreage to ultimately peasants who
Speaker 1: were able to get that land and make a better
Speaker 1: living for themselves because they didn't have to share as
Speaker 1: much of the profit with the lord because they were
Speaker 1: actually renting the land themselves. But the lord was also
Speaker 1: forced to then kind of move into areas of agriculture
Speaker 1: that were less um labor intensive, simply because they didn't
Speaker 1: have the labor to work the more labor intensive types
Speaker 1: of agriculture. So there was a push into things like
Speaker 1: animal livestock husbandry and planting more things like um grapes, apples, pears,
Speaker 1: and this kind of stuff instead of the more traditional
Speaker 1: green harvests which had been the case previously because those
Speaker 1: were more labor intensive. So there's definitely a large shift
Speaker 1: in what types of crops the manners were producing um,
Speaker 1: which is pretty substantial. Well, so just you know, big picture, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, looking forward, and obviously we're it seems to
Speaker 1: be in this sort of post crisis period in the
Speaker 1: sense that, at least from an economic perspective and certainly
Speaker 1: a market perspective, a widespread view that the worst is
Speaker 1: behind us. What type of things would you look forward
Speaker 1: from history or what kind of questions do you still
Speaker 1: have as a student of history in terms of how
Speaker 1: how the post coronavirus period will transpire. I think it,
Speaker 1: like many of us, I am looking to see whether
Speaker 1: this kind of recent uptick in cases and some of
Speaker 1: the states that reopened is going to be something more lasting,
Speaker 1: or whether it's a brief uptick. Because we've mentioned it
Speaker 1: a couple of times that everyone is well aware of
Speaker 1: the second wave of the Spanish Flu, and although there
Speaker 1: are a lot of differences, um, I think that it's
Speaker 1: definitely interesting to see. Even before all the recent protests,
Speaker 1: there seem to be, like around Memorial Days, some kind
Speaker 1: of like switch where people just kind of gave up
Speaker 1: on social distancing and lockdown. Just judging by social media
Speaker 1: and the amount of people I saw it kind of
Speaker 1: going out. So I think that's interesting to look out
Speaker 1: for because there are a lot of papers and examples
Speaker 1: from the Spanish Flu that are very reminiscent of today
Speaker 1: where there was business owners protesting about not being able
Speaker 1: to operate their businesses and open up their shops. I
Speaker 1: am interested to see if that kind of trend continues,
Speaker 1: But also it'll be interesting to see what I think
Speaker 1: is in the next maybe crisis or crash, what people's
Speaker 1: expectations are in terms of monetary policy and fiscal stimulus
Speaker 1: based on what's happened this time around, Because I think
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where now that the door
Speaker 1: has been opened, what it seems radical this time might
Speaker 1: become the expectation the next time around. So it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see what that kind of lasting impact is,
Speaker 1: just psychologically, because it might be the last time this happened,
Speaker 1: we got stimulus checks and the government really stepped into
Speaker 1: try and um save certain industries and sectors. But now
Speaker 1: this time you're saying you're not like and I think
Speaker 1: that should be interesting. Well, you mentioned that, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is seeing these charts and stories of remember the
Speaker 1: second wave of the Spanish flu was worse than the first,
Speaker 1: and of course that's not a lot of people's minds
Speaker 1: coming into the fall for blue season, to the extent
Speaker 1: that the coronavirus is seasonal, which we don't know that
Speaker 1: much about But was there anybody in nine eighteen saying, oh, remember,
Speaker 1: you know what happened the second wave of x or
Speaker 1: is the awareness of the concept of a second wave
Speaker 1: something that makes this unique and thus maybe a reason
Speaker 1: to think that history won't play out because when you
Speaker 1: when you can observe something and when you can describe something,
Speaker 1: usually don't really get the same as last time. I think,
Speaker 1: well they might, it might not have been like the
Speaker 1: second wave exact phrasing. They're definitely people who were advocating
Speaker 1: for continue to kind of lockdown in quarantine because they're
Speaker 1: aware that people continuing to go out and temple and
Speaker 1: crowds with only they caused the flue to linger around longer.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting and related to your point is
Speaker 1: that one reason to be more optimistic for today is
Speaker 1: the reason is called the Spanish flu is because it
Speaker 1: didn't originate in Spain. The reason it's called the Spanish
Speaker 1: flu is because during World War two or World War
Speaker 1: One rather, Spain was neutral and in other countries that
Speaker 1: were experiencing outbreaks of the Spanish for like the US,
Speaker 1: there's kind of this tacit agreement with the government between
Speaker 1: media and government that the media was not going to
Speaker 1: report on bad news like this, like Spanish flu. I mean,
Speaker 1: World War One's going on, and the government didn't want
Speaker 1: stories about Spanish flu kind of running all over the
Speaker 1: front pages of newspapers. So there are definitely some stories
Speaker 1: on it, but they were kind of relegated to kind
Speaker 1: of the back pages of newspapers, so there wasn't much coverage.
Speaker 1: And the reason that it's called the Spanish fluds because
Speaker 1: it Spain was neutral and so they didn't have that
Speaker 1: kind of tacit agreement in place, and so they were
Speaker 1: the ones kind of openly reporting it cases that were
Speaker 1: doing the most reporting, and so people started linking it
Speaker 1: with Spain, even though it was probably occurring in their
Speaker 1: own country as well. It just wasn't as widely reported.
Speaker 1: But that to your point, is the fact that today
Speaker 1: it's the opposite where literally all we read about his coronavirus, right,
Speaker 1: so there is a much more widespread may. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine anyone who doesn't know what coronavirus is, and so
Speaker 1: everyone is gonna be more cognizant of the risks involved
Speaker 1: in how and where we can do things to prevent
Speaker 1: that continued spread of the virus. So that is definitely
Speaker 1: one major reason to be optimistic is there's much broader
Speaker 1: knowledge of how to stop the spread. I think that's
Speaker 1: a good place to leave it. It's it's pretty rare
Speaker 1: for us nowadays to like end things on an optimistic note.
Speaker 1: So so let's do that, all right. Jamie Catherwood, a
Speaker 1: k A finance history guy, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming back on. And we should just mention, of course,
Speaker 1: that everyone should check out your website investor ammnesia dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jamie, thank you so much for having me. Thanks Jamie.
Speaker 1: That was great. So Joe, I found that discussion fascinating.
Speaker 1: I kind of knew that I would, but all those
Speaker 1: little tidbits and anecdotes of how you know, history has
Speaker 1: reacted to previous pandemics, I just find it so so fascinating. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And Jamie is just the best, isn't it. Yeah? I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: I know I've been sort of gushing about his output
Speaker 1: and his website, but if you enjoy finance, if you
Speaker 1: enjoy markets, or if you just enjoyed general history, following
Speaker 1: him on Twitter and reading his weekly newsletter things like that,
Speaker 1: it's just really interesting. He does a great job of
Speaker 1: going back to primary sources as well, so he'll often
Speaker 1: include cartoons of the time. You know, some of the
Speaker 1: cartoons that accompany the Spanish flu are particularly poignant. It's
Speaker 1: just a really great thing to to go over. And again,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm weird, but I always derive a little bit
Speaker 1: of comfort from going back in time and seeing what
Speaker 1: previous generations had to deal with and and realizing that,
Speaker 1: you know, something's never really changed. Yeah, no, I love it.
Speaker 1: And even the fact that there was an Amazon equivalent
Speaker 1: of these finish flow is pretty amazing because I was, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that was gonna be a joker,
Speaker 1: that there wasn't really going to be. But the fact
Speaker 1: that even even back then they were like similar industrial changes.
Speaker 1: And at some point we should do like a history
Speaker 1: of the catalog what was it the J. C. Penny
Speaker 1: Catalog has said Sears, Yeah, we should do an episode
Speaker 1: about the history of the series catalog because I think
Speaker 1: it's a pretty pretty um fascinating in its own right.
Speaker 1: How big of a deal that was absolutely and absolute
Speaker 1: giant of retail in the early nine early to mid
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds. And then well we can see what's happening today.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes you think about Amazon's business model,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Yeah? Absolutely, I guess The other the other
Speaker 1: big point to consider from Jamie is the notion that
Speaker 1: there are some major things that are different today. So
Speaker 1: one we have more transparency when it comes to information
Speaker 1: about the coronavirus, and two we have the big, big
Speaker 1: reactions from central banks and other authorities. I guess that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty different, isn't it. Yeah? Absolutely? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, this has been another episode of the
Speaker 1: All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe wy isn't thought.
Speaker 1: You could follow me at the Stalwart, And you should
Speaker 1: follow our guest Jamie Catherwood. He is j f C
Speaker 1: Underscore three Underscore. As Tracy mentioned, he is a great
Speaker 1: follow on Twitter. Be sure to follow our producer Laura
Speaker 1: Carlson at Laura M. Carlson, followed the Bloomberg head of podcast,
Speaker 1: Francesca Levie at Francesca Today and check out all of
Speaker 1: our podcast at Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.