WEBVTT - What The Black Death And Spanish Flu Can Tell Us About What Comes Next 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.000 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:19.400 I'm Tracy Allaway and I'm Joe. So, Joe, you know 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.520 what I like to do during uncertain times, times of trouble. 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.200 Play with your dog, play with your puppy. Yes, but 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.480 that's a relatively new development. Um, But for a long time, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.160 I really like reading history books whenever the world seems 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.040 a little bit crazy. I like going back in time 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.440 and finding other moments where things seem just as crazy. See. 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:44.680 I like stress eating when I when the world is 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:51.800 really bad. Yeah, stress eating is also enjoyable. But the 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.040 reason I bring it up is because in the current 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:59.920 situation we've seen the coronavirus pandemic, there are a lot 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.320 out of historic parallels to this particular outbreak. So almost 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.080 immediately when this whole thing started, people started reaching back 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.920 to the Black Death of the Middle Ages. We also 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.640 had people talking about parallels with the Spanish influenza pandemic 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.959 of nineteen eighteen. Lots of people looking at history to 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.240 try to figure out what's going on right now and 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.480 what the economy might actually look like once this outbreak 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.399 has subsided. Yeah, that's exactly right, Especially um, the Spanish flue, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:38.240 the Spanish influenza of nineteen eighteen. It's been numerous stories 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.440 about that. I guess because maybe of all the different 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.760 like sort of like pandemics we've had in the past, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.640 we probably have this sort of you know, most accurate 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.480 recollection of like what the medical experts were saying at 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.520 the time. Of course, everyone's seen those charts of the 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.600 second wave of the Spanish flu, so of all the 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.720 you know, lots of but as you say, lots of 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.400 attempt to look at history to figure out what they 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.440 mean for the president, right, and whenever we talk about 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.160 financial history, Uh, there's one guess that we really like 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.280 to have on. We're going to have him on again. 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.440 It's Jamie Cather would a k. A finance history guy 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.520 from O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. He also runs a website called 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.720 investor Amnesia dot com. We've had him on before. We're 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:26.919 going to have them on again to walk us through 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.480 what we can learn from previous outbreaks or pandemics and 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.760 what they tell us about the current situation. So Jamie, 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.560 thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.600 for having me back. So Jamie, maybe to begin with, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.080 you know, Joe mentioned that a lot of people have 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.920 been focusing on the Spanish influenza pandemic of nineteen in particular, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:53.000 But is there one moment in history that you've focused 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.600 on in your readings and um, and you're studying of 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.040 this topic, one moment of history that is the most 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.680 relevant to our current situation. Um So, I think that, 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.040 like you guys talked about, there's a lot of people 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.880 going back to both the Black Death and the Spanish Flu. 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.720 There's a lot of other kind of epidemics and pandemics 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.480 and history that are also interesting, but they're all really different, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.320 including the Spanish flu. It's fairly different in terms of 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.480 just the disease, but also kind of the time it 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.639 occurred in versus today. So I think there are a 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.000 lot of differences more than similarities. But there are some 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.640 interesting trends in both today and the Spanish flu that 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.440 are similar. And one that I found really interesting was 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.360 just there is a paper that talked about the Amazon 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.360 effects that occurred in the Spanish flu, which sounds crazy, 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.840 but um, we've all talked about how kind of sears 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.280 was the original Amazon and there was evidence I think 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.200 it isn't a Federal Reserve paper that showed on a 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:00.800 monthly basis during in the second wave that was in 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.440 the fall, which is the worst of the three waves. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.160 That the sales and business activity for Sears, Roebuck and 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.280 montgomer Reward, which had mail order catalogs, increased in the 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.200 worst months of the Spanish flu when more places were 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.120 shut and kind of lockdown was taking place, and then 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.359 as the economy started to reopen again, sales started to 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.880 decline back to normal levels. But there's like the spike 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.800 when people were at home or of ordering through these 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.400 mail order catalogs, just like today everyone orders from Amazon 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.240 while they're kind hunkered down at home. So if if 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.039 if the Sears catalog was the Amazon of that, what's 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.359 what was the peloton of that crisis? I can't even imagine. 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.880 I feel like there's some ridiculous contraction that you see 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.720 like some elastic band's workout machine or something. No. No. 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.520 But there's a lot of kind of anecdotes like that 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.920 which are just very reminiscent of today. There were things 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.960 like retail foot traffic was down in some areas. But 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.800 what was interesting is that then after the kind reopening 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.720 started to occur, that the some some retailers not all 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.880 obviously reported that the kind of bounced back after the 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.720 reopening made up for more than like the sales from 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.080 when their business had to be shut down, So that 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.080 was kind of interesting. Well, we should note on that note, 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.440 since you brought up retail sales, that we are recording 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:26.479 this on June at um now about nine in the 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.920 morning and just half an hour ago today we got 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.480 the retail sales for May and they came in way 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.760 better than expected. They basically come in came in double 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.200 on on a month over month basis, about double what 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.599 people were expecting. So as long as we're talking about 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.240 the sort of eco side, the pent up demand equivalent 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.839 of the Spanish Blue, this month's retail sales report would 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.760 bear out once again a sort of similarity. And it's 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.239 interesting to see kind of today and in the Spanish Blue, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:04.080 the different industries and types of retailers that did well 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.560 and which ones didn't like today and you see Zoom 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.240 and other companies like that. Clorox stock was rocketing for 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:15.080 a while, but in Spanish Flu the Federal Reserved paper 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:20.760 showed that mattress sales actually increased something ridiculous like or 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.560 something because bed rest was such a commonly prescribed like 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.840 cure by doctors for people who had symptoms, and so 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.159 people were just going out and buying mattresses because that 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.039 was what doctors were telling to do, is just stay 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.880 at home, you know, at bed rest. And so randomly 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.279 the mattress industry did very well, while other like retail groceries, um, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.400 they dropped like a third. And then there were a 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.880 lot of other businesses and kind of towns in Arkansas, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.200 which is what the Federal Reserve paper focused on, which 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:52.159 some of their business dropped like se So I'm curious 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.600 and you've touched on this already, but once the Spanish 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.680 flu sort of fell away, once the pandemic ended, did 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:04.840 we see the economy bounced back, corporate profits bounced back 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.600 and make up the lost income that had occurred during 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.120 the outbreak or was there sort of a permanent hit 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:19.760 two output. So the problem with this period is like 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.200 there's not as great economic data as you would think, 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.840 which is frustrating obviously because at a time with this 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.360 everyone's looking back to find the economic data. There is some, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.520 but from what I've read, the effect of the Spanish 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.880 flu was pronounced, but it was over the short term 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.160 and then there was a fairly quick bounce back. Um 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.440 as I said, like some of the examples of retailers 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.640 saying that the business boom once they could reopen made 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.520 up for the losses incurred during the kind of lockdown. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.040 And there were some businesses that actually reported a increase 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.400 over the prior year in sales, which was remarkable. But 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.840 the economy kind of bounced back. But also you have 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:02.000 to keep in mind of how much that was due 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.080 to the Spanish flu and how much was due to 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.400 the war ending. But bounce back was kind of short 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:13.000 lived in itself, because in you then had a recession, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.560 but in terms of the Spanish flu impact, it seemed 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.320 to be harsh but short lived, and the bounce back 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.760 was pretty swift. Was there any like did they do 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.440 any stimulus or anything like? Was there any economic policy 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.240 to counter the effect? I mean, one of the things 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.720 that's been striking that a lot of people have cited 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.079 for the surprising resilience of the economy and the market 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.040 during this crisis is just the degree to which policymakers 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.320 moved extremely fast, perhaps having learned some of the lessons 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.200 of the Greek recession about a decade ago. Was there 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.960 a economic policy response. Uh that time around, You know, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.120 there could have been, not from what I've read. I've 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.920 read a number of papers on this, and I don't 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.559 recall seeing there was. It wasn't pronounced enough to be 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:20.960 kind of prevalent throughout the research that I've read. Yeah, Tracy, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.920 it's interesting and speaking of history, how often economic stabilization 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.920 measures that we sort of take for granted as making 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.080 sense in it a downturn, more spending, lower rates, etcetera. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.520 Like they just didn't know anything back of the day. 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.400 Like it's a crazy reading back of like past prices. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:42.360 How like clueless policy makers looked relative to the sort 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.040 of conventional wisdom today about what you need to bounce back. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.800 It's always stands out to me when reading about past crises. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.520 I didn't know anything. I mean, I guess it depends 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.960 how far back in history you go. The Romans were 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.640 pretty good at that stimulus. But okay, we're gonna get 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.160 off track. I do want to go slightly further back 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.920 and talk about, um, the Middle Ages, the Black Death 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.640 aka the Great Plague. A lot of people have been 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.079 looking at that one and talking about the labor market. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.360 What might happen to wages and inflation. And I've seen 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.240 different theories on this. So one explanation says that after 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.400 the Great Death, so many people died that there was 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.960 a shortage of labor and wages eventually went up. But 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.720 I've heard other people say that one of the reasons 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.880 wages went up is basically a bunch of the peasants 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:40.160 revolted and sort of violently forced better earnings for themselves. 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.040 What have you learned so far, Jamie, Like what do 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.720 your readings tell you on that topic? And if you survived, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.080 then in terms of the Black Death, everything came up 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:51.599 peasants like it was a great time to be a 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.400 peasant after the Black Death because like you mentioned, as 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.000 you mentioned there there is a lot of disagreement over 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.120 which is crazy to think about it, like something that 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.320 happened hundreds of years ago, and there's still so much 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.319 disagreement among like economic historians of what happened. But from 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.640 what I've read, there seems to be a agreement that 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.439 there was a rise in wages after the Black Death because, 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.679 as you mentioned, so many people died, and to put 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.640 some numbers around it, the estimates are between seventeen and 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.319 twenty eight million Europeans and the Black Death was from 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.560 thirteen seven to thirteen fifty three. And what made it 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.320 actually so pronounced in its impact was the fact that 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.120 there wasn't one isolated outbreak. It kept coming back in 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:41.720 waves for decades. I think Britain experienced thirty different outbreaks 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:47.720 of the play between thirteen three in like thirteen I 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.079 can't it was like fifty year period. Basically there is 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.760 an outbreak every four years of the play. So it 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.000 just kept coming back, like every time they thought that 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.120 they were done with it, it would just come back, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.000 and each time it was less was less severe, but 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:02.640 I mean still was the plague and it was killing 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.240 off people. So it just kept coming back all over year. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.880 But in England it was basically every four years. But 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.679 as you mentioned, Tracy, because so many people had died. 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.440 What happened was that suddenly all these lords who had 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.800 previously seen over these manner systems where the peasants were 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.400 working the land and the lord would collect rent um 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:28.120 views from the peasants, they suddenly faced this problem where 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.679 they had all this land previously was a good thing, 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.440 but suddenly now there weren't as many peasants to work. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.360 Until the land, so the peasants were able to demand 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.520 higher wages, and also they had the ability to kind 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.840 of shop around their services to other lords, which previously 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.560 wouldn't have been the case. But because every lord was 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.800 so desperate to hire people to work their land that 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.679 if the lord a peasant was currently working for it 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.959 didn't offer them better working conditions, living conditions, and wages, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.959 then they could just go to another lord who would 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.760 be willing to offer them those um conditions. So for 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.959 the peasant and other kind of jobs related to agriculture, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:14.520 which outside of the city, nine out of every ten 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.680 people were making a living related to working with soil 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.080 in this period, which is crazy, they could go and 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.000 get higher wages. And there was one example of like 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:29.120 a plowman who in thirteen he was making two shillings 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.679 a week, and then thirteen forty nine he was making 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.720 three shillings a week. Then in thirteen fifty his wages 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.199 had grown to ten shillings a week. So yeah, you can, 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.800 and that's just like one example of many. The Fed's 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.200 got to raise rates that kind of wage grow the 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.120 ECB of the ECB high grade. But you know, I 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.079 didn't realize until you said it just now that there 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.199 were so many ways. But now I'm looking at like, 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:56.720 you know, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page of the 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.800 Black Death. It's funny, there's almost no way to talk 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:08.040 about old timey things without automatically sort of superimposing modern 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.679 conceptions of how the economy worked back onto them. Like 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.960 I mean, I joke about the E SPP graz and grades. 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.600 Obviously there was no ECB of but I you know, 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.520 my first question, like the first thing that comes to 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.480 my mind is like that has to be like really 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.680 bad form business capital expenditure plans, because who wants to 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.920 like plan for the future when there's so much uncertainty 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.480 about the next time the Black Death is going to 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.440 come along. Well, there was no ECB, but they did 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.200 try and control wages, which I'll get too in a second. Overall, 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.560 so that was one stark example of the guy quintuple 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.600 in his weekly wages in like two years. But overall, 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.440 the estimates are that wages rose between twenty and from 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.880 the thirteen forties to the thirteen sixties. Again pretty pronounced. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.440 But one thing that was a counter to this rise 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.360 in nominal wages was there was a pre substantial rise 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:08.240 in inflation because the gold and silver supply remain constant, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.840 but the amount of people decimated, so there was just 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.840 a higher ratio of gold and silver per capita, So 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.400 much of those kind of nominal weekly wage gains were 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:25.320 offset by this inflation. But to Joe's point about ECB 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.480 or some regulatory authority trying to control things, there was 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.280 obviously a lot of There were a lot of upset 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.560 lords because they didn't want to deal with these peasants 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.600 who were suddenly cocky and knew that they had kind 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.120 of had leverage in this situation. And there are all 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:42.680 of these lords who were complaining about peasants who would 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.880 barely do any work, like they would make a huge 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.440 fuss about being asked to do anything, and if they 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.760 did do jobs that they were doing haphazardly because they 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.560 just knew that the lord wouldn't be able to find 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:59.640 a replacement for them. So the lords tried to lobby 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:05.480 the youth authorities to do something about this problem, and 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.080 what ended up happening was the government put out two 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.400 statutes in thirteen forty nine and thirteen fifty one. In 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.360 thirteen forty nine, there was the Ordinance of Laborers and 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.400 then the Statute of Laborers in thirteen fifty one, which 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.440 both were aimed at pertailing wages, and they both stipulated 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.520 that wages for peasants had to be set at pre 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.480 plague levels, and again that was to kind of address 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.600 this situation where people were quickly getting five times what 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.320 they were making before the plague. And there are also 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.520 rules that the peasant couldn't leave and kind of shop 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.360 around his services to other lords, again to prevent this 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.280 issue of people leaving in manners being left or lords 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.640 being left with no one to till their manners. So 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.040 there was no interest rate policy or anything, but there 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.400 is definitely statutes put in place to try and prevent 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.840 the wage growth from spiraling out of control. Wait, so 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:01.920 just just to be clear who was putting Who is 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:06.000 making the statute? Which which which, which governing body or 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:10.239 which royal family or whatever was believe Parliament got it, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:28.560 royal family or whatever. I wanted to go back to 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.919 the the inflation point. You mentioned that the gold and 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.560 silver ratio to actual human beings was one thing that 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.680 was pushing prices up. But what did we see during 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:46.359 the Spanish flu outbreak? Did we see? I mean, we 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.520 wouldn't have had the same type of coinage obviously, and 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.040 we might have had hit to productivity because of the 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.000 war and various disruptions. But what did we see in 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.600 that one? Again, inflation didn't camp them up as much 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.480 as I thought it would have during um my reading. 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.800 But I know that there was a brief uptick in inflation, 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.840 But it seems like most of the effects for the 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.120 Spanish flu where brief. Even if they're kind of severe, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.040 they were short lived. Um. But for inflation, I know 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.920 that there was a short uptick, but I don't think 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.680 that there was anything um substantial. Again, this is also 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.760 kind during the war, so the government was doing a 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.760 lot to kind of try and control prices in terms 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.960 of quotas and everything and keeping prices stable, because I 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.760 know that after the war ended some industries, I think 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.800 Cole was one of them where the government wasn't buying 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.040 as much instead of help setting prices and stabilize them, 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.040 that the prices kind of dropped after the war ended. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.679 Going back to the Black Death for a second again, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.000 I'm doing Wikipedia history here, which is no no match 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.080 for your war series academic history, but there's a line 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.520 in here this is the Black Death. Most likely originated 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.639 in Central Alasia or East Asia, from where it traveled 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.679 along the Silk Road reaching Crimea by a Does that 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.879 fit with what you've read about the history of the 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.719 Black Death? And I'm curious. You know, one of the 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.600 things that's come up with this crisis and this virus 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.760 is the degree to which it's sort of has temporarily 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:23.040 and perhaps long term changed trade routes and certainly trained 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.680 travel routes due to the fact that international travel is 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:31.439 temporarily almost completely non existent. With these recurring outbreaks in 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.800 Europe over the span of you know, years and years 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.679 and years, were there any changes to trade routes that 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.639 you saw or that you've discovered in terms of the 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.639 relationship between Europe and the rest of the world. Not 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.640 so much in terms of trade route, but what there 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:54.160 was definitely a noticeable shift in was the type of 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.680 products in like types of agriculture that was burned in England. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.240 And again it was because if you were a lord 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.280 who had, you know, say a hundred acres and previously 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.359 you had fifty peasants working that land, suddenly you have 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.520 still had the same hundred acres, but maybe there was 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.159 only fifteen peasants that could work to land, so you 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.160 really weren't able to make use of that hundred acres. 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.040 And so what ended up happening, which again was great 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:26.679 for the peasant, was the lord ended up leasing and 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:32.520 renting out some of that acreage to ultimately peasants who 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.080 were able to get that land and make a better 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.359 living for themselves because they didn't have to share as 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:40.960 much of the profit with the lord because they were 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:45.280 actually renting the land themselves. But the lord was also 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.360 forced to then kind of move into areas of agriculture 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.760 that were less um labor intensive, simply because they didn't 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.560 have the labor to work the more labor intensive types 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.480 of agriculture. So there was a push into things like 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:09.600 animal livestock husbandry and planting more things like um grapes, apples, pears, 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.320 and this kind of stuff instead of the more traditional 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:17.160 green harvests which had been the case previously because those 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.879 were more labor intensive. So there's definitely a large shift 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:24.760 in what types of crops the manners were producing um, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:30.560 which is pretty substantial. Well, so just you know, big picture, uh, 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:35.159 you know, looking forward, and obviously we're it seems to 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.000 be in this sort of post crisis period in the 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.320 sense that, at least from an economic perspective and certainly 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.680 a market perspective, a widespread view that the worst is 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:49.280 behind us. What type of things would you look forward 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.000 from history or what kind of questions do you still 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.000 have as a student of history in terms of how 0:21:55.480 --> 0:22:00.080 how the post coronavirus period will transpire. I think it, 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.000 like many of us, I am looking to see whether 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.199 this kind of recent uptick in cases and some of 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.320 the states that reopened is going to be something more lasting, 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.359 or whether it's a brief uptick. Because we've mentioned it 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:15.760 a couple of times that everyone is well aware of 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.040 the second wave of the Spanish Flu, and although there 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.440 are a lot of differences, um, I think that it's 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.800 definitely interesting to see. Even before all the recent protests, 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.200 there seem to be, like around Memorial Days, some kind 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.720 of like switch where people just kind of gave up 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:35.280 on social distancing and lockdown. Just judging by social media 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:36.520 and the amount of people I saw it kind of 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.640 going out. So I think that's interesting to look out 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.639 for because there are a lot of papers and examples 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.520 from the Spanish Flu that are very reminiscent of today 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.800 where there was business owners protesting about not being able 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.919 to operate their businesses and open up their shops. I 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.639 am interested to see if that kind of trend continues, 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.680 But also it'll be interesting to see what I think 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:04.040 is in the next maybe crisis or crash, what people's 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:09.320 expectations are in terms of monetary policy and fiscal stimulus 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.720 based on what's happened this time around, Because I think 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.720 it's one of those things where now that the door 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.000 has been opened, what it seems radical this time might 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.040 become the expectation the next time around. So it'll be 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:23.560 interesting to see what that kind of lasting impact is, 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:27.120 just psychologically, because it might be the last time this happened, 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.120 we got stimulus checks and the government really stepped into 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:35.800 try and um save certain industries and sectors. But now 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:38.480 this time you're saying you're not like and I think 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:43.240 that should be interesting. Well, you mentioned that, you know, 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:47.960 everyone is seeing these charts and stories of remember the 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.200 second wave of the Spanish flu was worse than the first, 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:53.199 and of course that's not a lot of people's minds 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:56.280 coming into the fall for blue season, to the extent 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.320 that the coronavirus is seasonal, which we don't know that 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:04.720 much about But was there anybody in nine eighteen saying, oh, remember, 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:07.720 you know what happened the second wave of x or 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:11.399 is the awareness of the concept of a second wave 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:15.960 something that makes this unique and thus maybe a reason 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.240 to think that history won't play out because when you 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:21.959 when you can observe something and when you can describe something, 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:26.080 usually don't really get the same as last time. I think, 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:28.359 well they might, it might not have been like the 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:34.640