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April 2005 · Harper's index · Previous · Next   PDF

Harper’s Index

Ratio of active workers at General Motors to retirees on its pension rolls: 2:5¹

Total pension costs of the company per vehicle it produces: $675²

Percentage of Social Security contributions that go toward administrative costs: 0.6³

Average percentage of contributions to Britain's privatized pension system that do: 30⁴

Number of the 701 arrests under Britain's Terrorism Act since 2001 that have led to conviction: 17⁵

Number of U.S. residents convicted of “international terrorism” between fall 2001 and fall 2003: 184⁶

Median sentence given, in days: 14⁷

Date on which USA Today added Guantanamo to its weather map: 1/3/05⁸

Percentage of U.S.-born Mexican Americans who have suffered from some psychological disorder: 48⁹

Percentage of Mexican immigrants who have: 29¹⁰

Percentage of Mexico City residents who have: 23¹¹

Rank of Colombia's stock exchange among the best performers tracked by The Economist last year: 1¹²

Rank of China's among the worst: 1¹³

Rank of China among nations where world business leaders say they are “most confident” to invest this year: 1¹⁴

Number of private jets in China: 2¹⁵

Maximum hair length for North Korean men, in centimeters, as prescribed by state media: 5¹⁶

Extra centimeters allowed men over 50, for covering baldness: 2¹⁷

Amount a Nebraska man made this year by auctioning his forehead to advertisers: $37,375¹⁸

Price of an original Picasso drawing sold in January on Costco.com: $39,999.99¹⁹

Minimum number of octopuses catapulted in protest at a French McDonald's last year: 10²⁰

Average percentage of its food that an American household wastes: 14²¹

Percentage of Americans aged 18 to 29 who speak to their parents every day: 48²²

Number of preteen “secret agents” in the Girls Intelligence Agency, a market-research firm: 16,000²³

Average age of a Bay Area career-day audience this year to which a speaker touted stripping as a profession: 13²⁴

Extra amount that he said a stripper earns for “every two inches up there”: $50,000²⁵

Number of Canadian work permits granted since 1998 to stem a labor shortage in “exotic dancing”: 2,000²⁶

Length, in miles, of a rubber hose used until last fall to smuggle vodka from Belarus to Lithuania: 2²⁷

Number of prime ministers of Baltic states since 1990 who have finished a full term: 0²⁸

Back taxes on Mein Kampf sales owed by Adolf Hitler while chancellor in 1934: $11,500,000²⁹

Year in which Germany offered “right of return” to Jews persecuted there: 1949³⁰

Percentage change since 2001 in applications from U.S. Jews under this provision: +168³¹

Estimated number of visitors each week to the grave of Harry Potter, a Briton buried in Israel in 1939: 45³²

Ratio of ultra-Orthodox jaywalkers in Israel to secular jaywalkers: 3:1³³

Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35³⁴

Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35³⁵

Chances that the divorce of a born-again Christian happened after he or she accepted Christ: 9 in 10³⁶

Estimated number of young Christians in 1995 who had pledged to wait until marriage for sex: 2,500,000³⁷

Estimated percentage who waited: 12³⁸

Price a California company charges for a chain-mail condom: $75³⁹

Number sold last year: 5⁴⁰

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SEE ALSO: Alcohol; Art; Great Britain; Business; California; Children; China; Christianity; Colombia; Cuba; Economics; Fish and Other Aquatic Life; Food; Germany; Israel; Judaism; Lithuania; Mexico; Nebraska; North Korea; Sex; Social Security; Terrorism

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