Harper’s Index

Amount that U.S. companies are projected to write off this year to account for devalued acquisitions: $1,000,000,000,000¹

Number of times between 1998 and 2000 that errors or irregularities forced publicly traded firms to restate earnings: 463²

Number of times this happened in the seven previous years: 359³

Number of years that the University of Missouri's Kenneth L. Lay Chair in International Economics has been vacant: 3.5⁴

Number of Argentina's 17 presidents since 1958 who have completed a full term: 1⁵

Number of former Khmer Rouge officers whom Cambodia has tried: 0⁶

Number of Israeli military personnel jailed since September 2000 for refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories: 34⁷

Minimum number of Israeli high school students who wrote Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last fall to refuse in advance: 62⁸

Percentage of first-year U.S. college students in 1981 and 2001, respectively, with "middle-of-the-road" politics: 57, 50⁹

Percentage with "liberal" or "far-left" politics in those years: 21, 30¹⁰

Minutes before the President spoke at a jobs program last winter that protesters heard the event had been canceled: 10¹¹

Days later that he presented a budget proposal cutting the funding of such programs by 80 percent: 30¹²

Ratio of the President's proposed increase in U.S. military spending to China's total military budget in 2000: 1:1¹³

Rank of China's military budget among the world's largest that year: 3¹⁴

Estimated amount the United States spends each year safeguarding oil supplies in the Persian Gulf: $50,000,000,000¹⁵

Estimated value of U.S. crude-oil imports from the region last year: $19,000,000,000¹⁶

Number of times "evil" has been cited in State of the Union addresses by George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively: 5, 2¹⁷

Estimated total number of calories Congress burned giving Bush's last address 46 standing ovations: 22,000¹⁸

Price that a Canadian firm charges for a ten-inch cement "Garden Liberal" resembling Prime Minister Jean Chretien: $50¹⁹

Percentage by which genetically modified seeds increase a farm's economic yield, according to a study of 300 Iowa farms: 0²⁰

Days earlier than in 1970 that Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms now bloom: 6²¹

Number of the 31 U.S. senators facing reelection this year for whom no challenger has yet been recruited: 6²²

Amount the Justice Department spent in November installing curtains to cover two seminude statues of Justice: $8,650²³

Number of visitors to a Las Vegas consumer-electronics show last winter who opted to be shot with a stun gun: 120²⁴

Number of these who were journalists: 6²⁵

Pages of Henry Kissinger's White House records first released to the public last winter: 20,000²⁶

Number of accidents the U.S. nuclear submarine that capsized a Japanese fishing boat last year has had since then: 2²⁷

Days that the Taliban left bodies hanging after an execution, according to a judge in the new government: 4²⁸

Estimated number of minutes to which he says the country's new administration will reduce such hanging time: 15²⁹

Minimum number of calls the F.B.I. received last winter from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20³⁰

Months that a Denver bookstore has been refusing court orders to identify a buyer of a book about making illegal drugs: 22³¹

Number of people charged between 1988 and 1992 in connection with the U.S. savings and loan collapse: 1,098³²

Ratio of the average S&L jail term awarded in those years to the average term for a federal burglary conviction: 2:3³³

Amount a Silverado executive later stole from his investment firm per day of his three and a half years in jail: $5,000³⁴

Fine paid by Neil Bush in 1991 after federal regulators found him guilty of "ethical lapses": $50,000³⁵

Minimum number of violations for which the Securities and Exchange Commission cited George W. Bush in the same year: 4³⁶

Number of George H.W. Bush's five adult grandchildren who have been arrested: 3³⁷

Number who have been ticketed for sexual misconduct: 1³⁸

Number who avoided charges after being forgiven by a girlfriend for breaking into her house: 1³⁹

Chances that a country recently cited by the Pentagon as a potential U.S. nuclear target has no nuclear arms: 5 in 7⁴⁰

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