Were the pyramids also taller than the Burj Khalifa? That stretches the definition of “tall” dangerously thin.
The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
121–130 of 166 posts
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> VOC was an incredible enterprise It's easy to be incredible on the backs and dead bodies of slaves...
This should not be downvoted, it is historically accurate, the VOC imported 10's of thousands of slaves to do work that they were not prepared to pay for. It's a nice example of there being a huge crime at the foundation of huge riches, the VOC was definitely not a clean company by any stretch of the imagination and to this day the names of those who were responsible for the worst atrocities are proudly on display in…
Slaves were merchandise for the VOC but they did not import many slaves to do work [1]. They typically (ab)used the local population to do that. Still nothing to be proud of, but it is a different story than slaves that were brought to the Americas to work on plantations. Exploitation of the local people would certainly be unethical by today's standards, it wasn't unethical back then and it also wasn't a crime (although you probably meant the word "crime" figuratively).
[1]> the Dutch had only a relatively insignificant share in the Atlantic slave trade—never averaging much more than 5–6 per cent of the total. https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/545
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#123I think the closest modern day equivalent to the Dutch East India Co, at least in regards to their financial and strategic ties to a nation state, is the relation of Emaar (a state owned and funded global property developer) and the UAE (which in current times is basically Saudi Arabia).
For reference Emaar was the company that built the Burj Khalifa (formerly the Burj Dubai before funding ran out), Dubai Mall, Skii Dubai etc...
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
As another reference point, an annual salary for low-to-medium skilled labour in mid-17th century Holland was around 100 to 200 guilders, which would be about 20 million USD according to the implied "Infl. Adjusted" conversion in the article (upon which the entire premise of the article rests).
I think using annual salary is a reasonably fair assessment. Assuming it was $50k in today's dollar, the the company's valuation is more reasonable at $20 billion.
I agree with the spirit of what you are getting at.
Except that it's not fair to simply assume that a good salary was roughly similar in terms of purchasing power across the a few centuries. In fact at that time middle income people were much poorer in terms of what they were able to consume, purchase, and barter.
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#125This is a non-sensical article, relying on some obfuscating math hidden behind "Infl. Adjusted". Inflation adjustments gets pretty fuzzy even in the same nation across a few decades, let alone between different nations across centuries. The article equates the 1637 peak valuation of 78 million guilders with current day 7,900,000 million dollars (not the 79,000 million according to the bad math in the article!). Now c…
As another reference point, an annual salary for low-to-medium skilled labour in mid-17th century Holland was around 100 to 200 guilders, which would be about 20 million USD according to the implied "Infl. Adjusted" conversion in the article (upon which the entire premise of the article rests).
It does make you wonder what the inflation-adjusted figures are purported to mean even, given that they result in completely ridiculous results.
By contrast, an inflation calculator tells me that $100 one hundred years ago is worth around $2,500 now (so 25X). And according to this article https://www.jstor.org/stable/1820827?seq=1#metadata_info_tab... , a pretty typical wage back then was $0.50 per hour. 25X that is $12.50, which sounds about right as a typical median wage nowadays (perhaps a bit low; there is a real increase in standard of living over this time period too). So the inflation figures going back at least a hundred years do make sense. What causes them to break down when you try to go back much farther, then? Are the inflation figures simply wrong? Are there compounding errors that, over enough time, make the result completely ridiculous?
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think using annual salary is a reasonably fair assessment. Assuming it was $50k in today's dollar, the the company's valuation is more reasonable at $20 billion.
I agree with the spirit of what you are getting at. Except that it's not fair to simply assume that a good salary was roughly similar in terms of purchasing power across the a few centuries. In fact at that time middle income people were much poorer in terms of what they were able to consume, purchase, and barter.
As one example, the power loom didn't exist until the late 18th century. Before then, clothing was really expensive because an unbelievable amount of hand labor had to go into it. The average person did not own a lot of clothing, and the clothing they did have cost them relatively a lot of money.
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#127This is a non-sensical article, relying on some obfuscating math hidden behind "Infl. Adjusted". Inflation adjustments gets pretty fuzzy even in the same nation across a few decades, let alone between different nations across centuries. The article equates the 1637 peak valuation of 78 million guilders with current day 7,900,000 million dollars (not the 79,000 million according to the bad math in the article!). Now c…
As another reference point, an annual salary for low-to-medium skilled labour in mid-17th century Holland was around 100 to 200 guilders, which would be about 20 million USD according to the implied "Infl. Adjusted" conversion in the article (upon which the entire premise of the article rests).
[deleted]
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think using annual salary is a reasonably fair assessment. Assuming it was $50k in today's dollar, the the company's valuation is more reasonable at $20 billion.
I agree with the spirit of what you are getting at. Except that it's not fair to simply assume that a good salary was roughly similar in terms of purchasing power across the a few centuries. In fact at that time middle income people were much poorer in terms of what they were able to consume, purchase, and barter.
I finally get to ask someone directly: in “the a few centuries,” are the two articles considered valid English or is it a mistake?
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you dig into that more and explain why it is so difficult to compare wealth across centuries? It would seem to me that you would just find some basic unit to divide against (a dozen eggs; a liter of milk; a sq kilometer of land), and then scale? Whats wrong with my presumption? I know there must be quite a bit wrong with it, but I'm not familiar with economics whatsoever.
There are many problems, all interrelated. First, how do you compare eggs? 1 egg cost X then Y now is one measure. A different measure is what % of an average person's wages did would it cost to buy the egg. Oh wait, the average person was a farmer who didn't buy eggs they went to the check coop to get them (even city folks are likely to have kept chickens): the only people buying eggs were rich who may not have paid…
And breeding, I wouldn't be surprised to see that a normal chicken egg is 3 times more heavy today, compared to the 17th century. Are we really still talking about the same product?
Re: The Dutch East India Co was richer than Apple, Google, Facebook combined (2017)
#130This is a non-sensical article, relying on some obfuscating math hidden behind "Infl. Adjusted". Inflation adjustments gets pretty fuzzy even in the same nation across a few decades, let alone between different nations across centuries. The article equates the 1637 peak valuation of 78 million guilders with current day 7,900,000 million dollars (not the 79,000 million according to the bad math in the article!). Now c…
Adjust inflation down for productivity growth - there is a prize out there for this idea kids!