Actually, in the US in 2000, it proved to be a $300 tax refund. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
Last index for silver was $13/oz average in March 07.
The thirty pieces paid to Judas are commonly believed to have been Tyrian shekels at about 8.5 grams each -- fact-check me on this, someone -- and 8.5g is about .3 ounces, right?
So Iscariot was paid about 9 ounces of silver (30 x .30), or about $117 US today.
OTOH given the average price of housing and food in Roman Palestine, that $300 tax refund may be a stingy bribe by comparison... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I think this is where the DuBois concept of the "psychic wage" is essential to understanding. If we try to measure the material payoff to middle- and working-class voters, their support for Sarko/Reagan/Thatcher/Berlusconi looks flat-out insane. But when these candidates can posture as the defenders of some impalpable value against a perceived threat, homo economicus takes a nap and his ideological twin pulls the voting lever. The 84% turnout is really disturbing, as is the suggestion that Sarko will try to form an alliance with LePen's outfit as Berlusconi did with the Allianza.
wouldn't it be ironic if the marketoids. with their singleminded insistence on money as the metric of all things, had to appeal to extra-economic ideas to get some chunks of the electorate to vote -- in a very "irrational" way -- against their own economic interests? The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
