How The Bubonic Plague Actually Saved Europe In The 14th Century (Finance)

TBI ^ | 5-15-2013 | Sam Ro

[blam]

How The Bubonic Plague Actually Saved Europe In The 14th Century

Sam Ro
May 15, 2013, 1:31 PM

Studying the history of financial crises can be quite enlightening.

Deutsche Bank's Peter Hooper just published an interesting report considering crises going back to the Middle Ages.

Referring to the work of Juesus Huerta de Soto, Geld, Bankkredit und Konjunkturzyklen, and Stuttgart, Hooper summarizes what happened during the European credit crisis of the 14th century.

What's interesting is how the country got out of the crisis.

From Hooper's note (emphasis added):

In the early 14th century banks in Florence engaged in a large-scale credit expansion. This set the stage for a powerful economic upswing, which transformed Florence into the most important centre of finance and trade in the Mediterranean region. But the bankruptcy of England, a repatriation of funds to Naples and a bust of Florentine government bonds ended the credit cycle and triggered a crisis. Banks crashed and credit contracted (described in historical records as “mancamento della credenza” – we would call it credit crunch today). Real estate prices declined by 50%. It took thirty years—from 1349 to 1379— before a recovery began. Historians ascribe a role to the plague in recovery, which dramatically raised cash balances per capita (by lowering the denominator) and induced people to spend (by dramatically raising the discount rate for future consumption). As a result, deflation ended and output recovered.

"Lowering the denominator" is a nice way of saying that the plague killed a bunch of people leaving excess wealth to the survivors.

[blam]

In my anthropology studies, I learned that labor was almost unaffordable after the plague. The survivors of the plague had inherited so much from all the relatives that died that they didn't need to work.

[Perdogg]

ping

[ThomasMore]

...one step further...

modern economic crisis...

let’s start WWIII...(or other mass mortality devices)

Don’t push off this thought as conspiracy thinking. Too many elites love this idea.

[ClearCase_guy]

Bird flu will save us all.

Well, not all.

[SIDENET]

The real headline should be:

"Europe's finances so bad that Black Death seems a viable solution."

[Tijeras_Slim]

Good times unless you’re one of the ones on the cart.

[blam]

France Double-Dips As European Recession Is Now Longest On Record

[Gen.Blather]

“let’s start WWIII...(or other mass mortality devices)

Don’t push off this thought as conspiracy thinking. Too many elites love this idea.”

I recently had dinner with a liberal doctor. He’s very concerned about over population. He related a conversation with another doctor who said, “What we really need is another Black Death.” I’d put this off to idiots talking, but these guys have the capability of being the next Bond villain. How many really rich people out there might finance just such apocalyptic egos who want to “save the Earth” by lowering the population? Too bad there aren’t real life James Bond’s.

[Oatka]

Good times unless you’re one of the ones on the cart.

Or the one being carried out by this guy:

[C19fan]

Just look at all the laws the aristocracy passed in an attempt to keep their peasants from moving for higher wages.

[DuncanWaring]

Twelve Monkeys.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[SpaceBar]

Actually this is no big revelation. It is generally recognized by historians that the plague had the dubious benefit of leaving the survivers with more wealth and opportunities due to the demographic vacuum it created in its wake.

[Wyatt's Torch]

WW II got us out of the Great Depression.

“Problem” now ifs that economically we aren’t anywhere near what was experienced in this article or even in the Great Depression. The current recovery is slow and bumpy but private business (not government) is doing better.

[chajin]

What had been keeping the labor market in check throughout the European Middle Ages were the Crusades. To oversimplify the picture, every generation or so starting around 1095, perhaps 100,000 Crusaders were sent off to the Holy Land, where most of them either died or stayed (and then died), allowing feudal Europe to perpetuate itself. After the Black Death, Europe is never again overpopulated, except in one demographic: by the 1600s, there were too many nobility to allow them all to be landed gentry, which is why so many of them migrate to the Americas.

[Average Al]

"Bird flu will save us all. Well, not all."

Just those that don't flock together.

[Vigilanteman]

If you get deep into the bowels of libtard thought, you will find more than a few who will point out that the earth's population was near a stable half billion people for multiple millenniums.

It was only with the advent of the industrial revolution (i.e. capitalism) that the earth became capable of supporting far more.

A few libtards will even grudgingly acknowledge that technological advances which arose totally as an unconnected coincidence to capitalism means the earth is capable of supporting a much larger population now, maybe even as many as four billion.

Isn't that so enlightened of them?

[LachlanMinnesota]

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

[LachlanMinnesota]

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” “clang”

[Georgia Girl 2]

“let’s start WWIII...(or other mass mortality devices)”

Yeh like the H9N7 that just happened to escape the lab in China and suddenly we are not hearing anymore reports about it. Like it fell off the cliff.