Watched the uplifting and depressing movie Harriet last night. Second time I’ve seen it. Fabulous tale about the efforts of Harriet Tubman in liberating herself from slavery, then liberating most of her family, eventually freeing about 70 people from slavery. After watching the movie again, wanted to pull together a recap of the posts on […]
Pay for American soldiers during each major war is provided by We Are the Mighty. Their article, This is how much troops were paid in every major American war, provides the pay for a private in the major wars fought by the U.S. The then-current pay is also adjusted to an equivalent amount of money […]
Transatlantic travel time has dropped radically in the last 500 years. Time to transit the Atlantic has dropped about 99% and cost has dropped about 95% by my calculations. Let’s look at several data points for cost and time, then calculate one indicator of improved quality of life. (Article cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun […]
Previous post explored a comment by Eric Metaxas in his book, Martin Luther, The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, that the first printing of Luther’s translation of the New Testament cost half a gulden for an unbound copy and a gulden for a bound copy. In that post I calculated that the […]
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’ Total Wealth Hits Record, According to Federal Reserve Report. (Cross post from Attestation Update.) Want to add this additional frame of reference before getting back to looking at Alexander’s haul as he looted […]
I am building some reference points for my ongoing learning about ancient finances. (If you couldn’t tell, I’m have a lot of fun. This learnin’ thing is cool.) Here is the value of all the stock listed on the market in the G-20 economies. This is the total capitalization of the companies in those countries. […]
The following numbers are based on purchasing power parity, which is a tool economists use to compare countries across currencies and across time. (Cross post from Attestation Update.) Average income across the planet is now $33 a day, which is also about equal to average income in Brazil today or in the US back in […]