June 2, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great Alexander’s haul from looting Susa, the capital of Persia. Revised estimate of value of one Athenian Talent Update: I have revised my calculations here. Adjusted the value of an Athenian talent from 10 years salary today up to 400 […]
June 2, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great Alexander the Great’s biggest hauls when looting cities After developing a few points of reference for comparing ancient finances to now, I can get back to pondering the value of loot Alexander […]
June 2, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great, comparison data Total wealth held by American households as reference point for ancient finances Here is another point of reference I’ll use for my discussion of ancient finances. The Wall Street Journal reported on 6/7/16: Americans’ […]
June 1, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great, comparison data Stock market capitalization as reference point for ancient finances I am building some reference points for my ongoing learning about ancient finances. (If you couldn’t tell, I’m have a lot of […]
June 1, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great Compensation for skilled construction worker The description of how much a drachma or Athenian Talent is worth is best considered by converting it to how many days labor […]
June 1, 2017January 1, 2018Alexander the Great, comparison data So, how can we compare today’s wages with 100 years or 2,300 years ago? The following numbers are based on purchasing power parity, which is a tool economists use to compare countries across currencies and across […]
June 1, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great, comparison of living standards How much has our economic wellbeing improved from that our of distant ancestors? A view of economic progress. Ponder the productivity improvement and resulting increase in wealth to go from this: To this: The overall […]
June 1, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great Value of 1 ancient Greek drachma and 1 Athenian Talent Image: Courtesy of Flickr by Carole Raddato If you are curious and want to follow along, I’ll be spending a bit of […]
June 1, 2017June 15, 2017Alexander the Great Ancient finances, the Alexander the Great chapter Image: Flickr by Carole Raddato The Wall Street Journal has a delightful review by James Romm: Conqueror and Squanderer. The review is […]