In the late 1340’s Europe was dealing with the worst outbreak in history – the Great Plague or Black Death was gripping Europe. The disease reduced the population of Europe by a minimum of a third and in some cases over 50% in a very fast death and is well written about in the book The Great Mortality by John Kelly, Harper Perennial, NY, 2005. The plague moved around the countries similar to trade routes and quickly spread through the population. No one really knew why people were getting sick and some were not. The plague we now know was carried by fleas on rats, but back in the 1340’s they did not have the infectious disease control centers we know. They just knew a disease was travelling around Europe leaving death in its wake.

The plague lead to a number of advances, one it is believed the infection ran out of people to kill or the bodies that were left, adapted to the genes. It also believed abnormal climate changes affected the rat population to move to the urban cities from the country. Prior to the plague, in many countries they were either faced with more extreme weather or earthquakes which affected the normal everyday life. The extreme weather could be it drought or rainy weather for 3 years or more, it order to survive people and animals had to move, and typically when people move they go to urban centers for opportunity.

Although the author hopes we never have a plague again, reading the book was hard to read because of the descriptions of death, what was interesting to this blog was how did people react to the plague? In many cities, a minimum of 1/3 of the people died and it was likely closer to 50%. One thing people did was to ensure they had been to the lawyers to update their wills, hoping somebody listed actually survived. People also turned to religion to try to make sense of it all. The religion had both good and bad – if someone dies of the plague what to do with the body and since there were so many deaths how to ensure their souls were saved? People also turned to the worst parts of religion by using the religion to blaming somebody (other religions) for the plague in the name of their religion. The conspiracy folks had a field day one can only imagine what would be going on using the internet. Another aspect of many people passing away is fraud, particularly if someone had money was easily found or stolen.

On the flip side, those that lived after the plague found many shortages – food, administration and work which sent up wages. It many areas it took hundreds of years before things were back to normal.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the companies which produce dividends consistency prefer stable or near stable conditions, although there will be fluctuations here and there. The plague was very similar to the war where a third or half the population disappears, which produces very challenging situations. If the company has a reasonably diversified income streams it can weather some of the changes the regular environment offers. It is important to note some companies are more use to dealing with challenging environments than others just because of the nature of the business and it is good to learn from them.

There are more questions than others, till the next time – to raising questions.