11/88Value of the narcotics that the U.S. Border Patrol’s 3,200 agents detected this year, per agent: $123,758
Value of the narcotics that the Patrol’s 24 drug-sniffing dogs detected this year, per dog: $4,696,574
4/07Fine paid in 2006 by a company building the U.S. border fence, in a guilty plea for hiring illegal immigrants: $4,700,000
2/97Amount that is being spent by the federal and state governments to preserve the Florida panther, per panther: $4,800,000
2/07Amount the Defense Department is paying North Dakota researchers to develop a biofuel for military jets: $4,800,000
6/97Number of Americans employed domestically by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations: 4,900,000
7/87Estimated legal fees generated each month by the Pennzoil-Texaco lawsuit: $5,000,000
9/90Amount the U.S. Army spent last year on recreational target-practice programs for civilians: $5,000,000
8/06Amount appropriated by the governor of Texas in June to set up border-watching webcams: $5,000,000
6/96Amount the Pentagon will spend this year to equip Andrews Air Force Base with a third golf course: $5,100,000
11/08Minimum number of children in the United States who have at least one parent in the country illegally: 5,100,000
7/03Amount by which the number of government jobs in the U.S. exceeds the number of manufacturing jobs: 5,129,000
8/88Amount the U.S. Air Force will spend this year on imported-goatskin flight jackets: $5,193,000
10/02Maximum amount each of Enron’s 4,500 laid-off employees would receive as part of a proposed settlement: $13,500
Average amount the company paid each of its 140 top executives last year: $5,300,000
3/93Amount for which Bruce Springsteen’s voice is insured by Lloyd’s of London: $5,406,800
7/91Number of hours that U.S. convenience-store employees spend counting pennies each year: 5,500,000
8/90Total number of documents classified as “secret” or “top secret” by the federal government last year: 5,506,720
4/86Pounds of redfish harvested from the Gulf of Mexico in 1982: 2,400,000
1/91Amount the Department of Veterans’ Affairs paid in 1989 in benefits to people who are dead: $5,700,000
1/89Estimated amount the British government spent worldwide to stop publication of Spycatcher: $6,000,000
6/97Fine levied last October against a Dole campaign-finance official convicted of laundering contributions: $6,000,000
7/01Average monthly viewership of NakedNews.com, a Canadian website whose anchors strip while reading the news: 6,000,000
Estimated number of different official names that have been applied to them: 6,000,000
8/00Minimum amount President Clinton’s pension and staff will cost U.S. taxpayers if his life span is average: $6,072,000
11/98Number of Moscow’s major newspapers that mentioned last August’s Clinton/Yeltsin summit the day before it began: 0
Number of U.S. households that chose professional wrestling over the President ‘s televised apology that month: 6,379,000
12/07Total contributions to 2008 presidential campaigns so far that have come from the oil and gas industry: $1,727,000
Total from the education industry: $6,406,000
9/97Amount that current campaign-finance investigations have cost the DNC in legal and clerical fees: $7,000,000
Amount of “questionable” contributions the DNC has subsequently been forced to return: $2,800,000
11/92Amount by which the number of women voting in 1988 exceeded the number of men who voted: 7,000,000
2/93Asking price for Amerika, a 27-acre town in eastern Germany’s Karl Marx County: $7,000,000
7/99Cost of the 105 bomb-proof boundary posts placed on the Iraq-Kuwait border after the Gulf War: $7,000,000
10/88Amount offered to the Congo this year to accept 100,000 tons of Europe’s toxic waste: $7,063,500
9/84Amount spent by the University of Alabama on athletics in the last academic year: $7,069,000
2/02Amount the Pentagon has paid a Washington P.R. firm since then to help sway public opinion abroad: $7,100,000
3/01Amount owed creditors by the touring song-and-dance group Up with People when it went under last December: $7,300,000
Total amount of leftover campaign funds that these members will be eligible to keep: $7,324,643
4/91Amount the federal government spent last year on the savings and loan bailout, per hour: $7,420,000
2/88Tons of earth that will be moved to build the tunnel under the English Channel: 7,500,000
10/03Amount in “disgorgement” that the SEC has ordered a former Xerox CEO to pay in connection with alleged fraud: $7,600,000
Percentage of this payment that Xerox will cover: 100
9/05Amount the U.S. spent last year on mosquito nets to fight malaria in Africa: $4,000,000
Amount it paid a consultancy to conduct “social marketing” of mosquito nets: $7,600,000
9/88Amount the Justice Department has spent to prosecute the Iran-contra case: $7,792,849
Amount the government spent to protect Oliver North during last year’s congressional hearings: $1,200,000
Amount the four Iran-contra defendants allegedly diverted to the contras: $3,800,000
4/85Estimated contributions to the contras from private American groups and citizens in the last year: $8,000,000
3/03British price-fixing fine levied last November on Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly: $8,000,000
9/03Amount Pat Robertson has invested in Liberian gold mining: $8,000,000
Number of times he cited the country’s leaders as wronged Christians on his TV show while President Bush was in Africa: 3
10/91Amount Woodstock, New York, plans to earn by selling one-square-inch plots of the town for $10 apiece: $8,400,000
1/06Tons of waste produced by New York City each year: 8,500,000
6/91Average number of complaints of excessive force lodged each day against police in the three largest U.S. cities: 14
Amount the city of Los Angeles paid out in settlements of police-brutality suits last year: $8,699,431
12/95Amount by which the Beatles outearned the Rolling Stones last year: $9,000,000
11/97Amount by which Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo’s 1998 team contract exceeds that of Michael Jordan: $9,000,000
6/04Amount that next year’s Defense Department budget proposal requests for researching low-yield nuclear weapons: $9,000,000
Number of years that such research was illegal before Congress repealed the ban last November: 10
Word count today: 9,097,000
10/92Number of wisdom teeth extracted from Americans last year: 9,337,000
6/01Years after the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill was first introduced that it passed the Senate in April: 5
Total amount raised at the two major-party fund-raisers held in the week before its passage: $9,500,000
1/90Net worth of Donald Trump, per pound: $9,700,000
4/00Number of U.S. Census respondents in 1990 who identified their race as “other”: 9,804,847
7/89Payment that five former employees demanded from Du Pont in 1988 for not disclosing the Lycra formula: $10,000,000
11/89Amount Ivana Trump is seeking in a suit against a cosmetics company for marketing “Ivana” lipstick: $10,000,000.
8/85Legal fees paid by CBS to outside counsel in 1984: $10,400,000
8/03Amount a judge ordered the Anti-Defamation League to pay in April for calling a Colorado couple anti-Semitic: $10,500,000
10/86Number of jobs created during the Carter Administration: 10,600,000
8/85Net profit of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1984: $10,620,000
12/86Amount of tax revenues Oklahoma loses every time the price of a barrel of oil drops by $1: $11,000,000
10/90Total incentive awards NASA has paid the manufacturer of the Hubble space-telescope mirror since 1987: $11,000,000
12/01Estimated amount Cleveland has spent in the last two years fulfilling Y2K-protection contracts: $11,000,000
3/08Estimated amount that Ike Turner spent on cocaine during his lifetime, according to Turner: $11,000,000
12/85Number of Americans old enough to see Halley’s Comet for the second time this winter: 11,294,000
10/97Number of America’s poorest children who will not benefit from the new $500 child-tax credit: 11,336,731
10/04Total “ death gratuities ” the U.S. government has paid since then to survivors of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq: $11,436,000
4/05Back taxes on Mein Kampf sales owed by Adolf Hitler while chancellor in 1934: $11,500,000
11/96Amount the U.S. government spends each year to broadcast anti-Castro TV Martí toward Cuba: $11,600,000
5/05Minimum number of U.S. adults who think Bush is “liberal” or “very liberal”: 11,800,000
10/90Amount the World Bank will lend Brazil this year to spray the Amazon Basin with DDT to combat malaria: $12,000,000
6/01Estimated number of Americans who are eligible for food stamps but have not applied: 12,400,000
2/08Total liability for copyright infringement that one Utah professor estimates he amasses in a typical day: $12,450,000
12/95Estimated amount of gasoline wasted in U.S. traffic jams each day, in gallons: 12,600,000
Number of condoms it purchased: 13,000,000
8/91Total PAC funds that went to the 331 candidates challenging incumbents for House seats in 1990: $6,898,631
Total PAC funds that went to the 79 incumbents who ran for re-election unopposed: $13,277,348
7/91Number of U.S. households that watched NBC each week in 1979, when the network was in last place: 13,300,000
Number that watch NBC today, when the network is in first place: 11,800,000
2/96Ratio of Steven P. Jobs earnings last year on the day his firm’s stock went public to Michael Milken’s 1987 earnings: 1:1
Ratio of Jobs’s average hourly earnings on that day to the U.S. minimum wage: 13,421,052:1
8/93Amount contributed to the Democratic National Committee since January: $13,600,000
Number of people who have died of measles since then: 14,000,000
1/93Number of trees used to produce the mail-order catalogues sent to U.S. households each year: 14,000,000
5/08Amount a businessman in the United Arab Emirates paid this year for the nation’s license-plate number “1”: $14,000,000
7/05Number of Americans who spend more than a quarter of their income on health care: 14,300,000
6/01Amount that the U.S. has given El Salvador for earthquake relief since January: $14,500,000
5/88Amount the South Korean government spent last year on tear gas: $15,000,000
12/88Amount the rock group Bon Jovi earned in 1988: $15,000,000
Amount the estate of Elvis Presley earned in 1988: $15,000,000
8/93Amount Ross Perot’s advocacy group, United We Stand, claims it has raised since January: $15,000,000
8/86Tons of cargo handled at the Port of New York and New Jersey in 1985: 15,344,000
8/07Estimated amount of oil, in barrels, used to make the bottled-water containers sold in the U.S. last year: 16,000,000
7/08Average amount spent lobbying Congress last year each day it was in session: $16,279,069
5/95Estimated number of Americans who belong to a neighborhood crime-watch program: 16,500,000
8/93Number of Americans who must become Rhodes scholars for Clinton’s Cabinet to “look like America”: 17,000,000
7/00Amount the U.S. proposed charging the U.N. last May to fly a battalion of peacekeepers into Sierra Leone: $17,000,000
Estimated amount it would cost to fly in a battalion via commercial airline: $6,000,000
4/87Proceeds of the 175 circuses held by the Shriners for charity in 1984: $17,500,000
4/95Change since last year in federal funds budgeted for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: +$19,675,000
11/90Names on U.S. voter-registration rolls that represent people who have died or moved to another district: 20,000,000
5/89Estimated number of acres of residential lawn in the United States: 20,000,000
12/90Amount the U.S. government lent Brazil last year to build a highway through the Amazon rain forest: $20,000,000
6/91Value of the jewelry Madonna wore to the Academy Awards last March: $20,000,000
1/94Amount IBM will spend this year on parties for its top employees: $20,000,000
9/95Projected cost of providing Israel’s most remote West Bank settlements with roads bypassing Arab towns: $20,000,000
2/96Amount U.S. intelligence agencies have spent on psychics since 1972: $20,000,000
10/01Amount Romania plans to spend by 2003 to build a Count Dracula theme park: $20,000,000
8/02Amount an Ohio power company agreed to pay in April to purchase a town affected by its plant’s pollution: $20,000,000
2/03Estimated number of asteroids whose orbits Earth crosses each year: 20,000,000
12/06Amount a 2006 defense bill authorized for a daylong “celebration” of “success” in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20,000,000
Date on which the authorization was extended to 2007: 9/30/06
7/07Amount Uncle Ben’s rice spent this year to rebrand the “iconic character” of its fictional namesake: $20,000,000
Date on which he was “elevated” to “Uncle Ben, Chairman”: 3/30/07
2/00Estimated profit earned by New York State last year on collect calls made by prisoners: $21,000,000
1/06Number of manufacturing jobs that China has lost since 1996: 21,000,000
11/90Amount a cousin of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd lost at casinos on the French Riviera in August: $21,640,000
4/94Value of the federal government’s stockpile of “medicinal” opium and morphine: $21,800,000
1/06Tons of hurricane-related waste still waiting to be hauled away in Louisiana: 22,000,000
Estimated percentage that were subsequently foamed to death: 100
2/85Number of homosexuals discharged from the U.S. military in 1983: 1,796
Amount the military spent recruiting and training the homosexuals it discharged: $22,500,000
12/92Fine levied on Rockwell International in June for environmental violations at the Rocky Flats weapons plant: $18,500,000
Performance bonuses the Department of Energy paid Rockwell for the last 3 years it operated the plant: $22,600,000
11/98Total amount that individuals have spent since 1994 on legal fees related to Starr’s investigation: $23,000,000
7/02Days after receiving it last year that a California dump lost its landmark status because it is a Superfund site: 20
Amount spent since 1989 to clean up the site: $23,000,000
8/87Total acres in Indiana: 23,158,400
12/07Estimated total annual revenue of panhandlers in the Las Vegas metropolitan area: $24,000,000
3/84Men under arms, worldwide: 25,000,000
8/87Acres of lawn in the United States: 25,000,000
10/92Estimated cost of a complete set of the 200 human body parts now available in artificial form: $25,000,000
1/01Estimated number of Americans who have ever belonged to a nonprofessional self-help group: 25,000,000
7/01Signing bonus that two oil companies paid Chad in April 2000 in order to join an oil-exploration project: $25,000,000
Amount of this bonus that Chad spent on weapons, violating an International Monetary Fund agreement: $4,500,000
7/03Estimated amount spent on lap dances in Las Vegas each year: $25,000,000
3/98Estimated percentage of drugs donated since 1992 to victims of the Bosnian war that were unusable: 50
Estimated amount that the drugs’ destruction would have cost the donors: $25,500,000
6/97Price Richard Nixon’s family proposes the U.S. government pay to release remaining Watergate documents: $26,000,000
2/04Estimated value of Senate majority leader Bill Frist’s household’s stake in HCA, his family’s hospital chain: $26,000,000
Months before Bush signed the Medicare bill in December that the New York Times last mentioned Frist’s holdings: 4
10/06Estimated amount that tourism will add to Rwanda’s economy next year: $26,000,000
4/07Amount by which the salary of Judge Judy exceeds the salaries of all nine Supreme Court justices combined: $26,000,000
8/86At the Port of Los Angeles: 26,437,500
9/85Number of Americans who commute from a suburb to a city to go to work: 13,900,000
Who commute from one suburb to another: 26,900,000
6/07Amount that Lockheed Martin has spent so far on Polecat, a new unmanned stealth aircraft: $27,000,000
Date on which the only prototype crashed when the self-destruct mode was accidentally activated: 12/18/06
12/95Amount insurers paid to victims of climate-related disasters each day during the 1980s, worldwide: $8,000,000
Amount paid such victims each day last year: $27,400,000
5/86Decimal places to which the value of pi has been calculated: 29,360,128
9/86Days spent on strike by British workers in 1979: 29,474,000
2/92Number of jobs George Bush promised in 1988 to create by the end of his second term as president: 30,000,000
2/97Amount that Western Village, a Japanese theme park, spent constructing an 80-foot replica of Mount Rushmore: $30,000,000
3/99Severance pay received by Viacom CEO Frank Biondi after he was fired by the company in 1996: $15,000,000
Severance pay Frank Biondi received last year after he was fired by Universal Pictures: $30,000,000
6/02Total amount the I.R.S. has paid Americans in improperly claimed slave reparations since 2000: $30,000,000
7/04Value of the “political risk insurance” that the U.S. government is providing two private investors in Iraq: $30,000,000
12/04Revenue generated by Halliburton under CEO Dick Cheney from business deals with Iraq under Saddam Hussein: $30,000,000
6/00Number of immigrants Japan would require in order to maintain its present workforce through the year 2050: 30,450,000
3/88Amount spent by Americans in 1986 in adoption fees for South Korean babies: $31,270,000
10/99Amount a clerical error has cost the British government in excess payments to the Queen since 1991: $31,500,000
4/03Amount the U.S. withheld from the U.N. Population Fund last year, citing links to forced abortions in China: $34,000,000
Months after the State Department had cleared the U.N. of such connections that the funds were withheld nonetheless: 2
1/98Projected cost of a poll Newt Gingrich proposed last fall to assess Americans’ views of the I.R.S.: $35,000,000
2/03Amount Democratic candidates raised last year from individuals who gave at least $1 million: $36,000,000
Amount Republican candidates raised last year from individuals who gave as much: $3,000,000
Amount that is currently emerging per day, in gallons: 36,900,000
7/00Number of Susan B. Anthony dollars the U.S. minted last year to meet new vending-machine demand: 37,000,000
4/97Value of surplus weapons and equipment one U.S. Air Force base lost track of between 1991 and 1994: $39,000,000
7/90Amount the U.S. government has paid Romania since 1980 for Soviet-made weapons for intelligence purposes: $40,000,000
Estimated amount of the payment that went directly into the Ceausescu family’s private bank accounts: $8,000,000
12/98Amount the U.S. Energy Department plans to spend by 2000 to keep Russian nuclear scientists employed: $40,000,000
9/01Amount the federal government paid Harvard researchers in the 1990s to help design Russian market reforms: $40,000,000
8/91Total number of tourists who visited Italy last year: 27,000,000
Total number who visited Disney theme parks in the United States: 41,000,000
4/01Gallons per day that the proposed drilling of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is projected to yield: 42,000,000
12/93Number of residents of the former Soviet Union who live outside their ethnic homeland: 43,000,000
1/97Number by which Americans who watched last year’s Super Bowl exceeded those who voted in November: 43,000,000
12/95Amount the U.S. government budgeted this year for aid to U.S. workers laid off as a result of NAFTA: $43,400,000
Number of workers approved for such aid this year: 42,172
3/95Amount for which a Mississippi man attempted to sue “the Bible” last year, citing it as “oppressive hearsay”: $45,000,000
1/01Amount the U.S. Army plans to pay the entertainment industry this year to develop training videos for combat: $45,000,000
5/05Amount the Department of Homeland Security will spend this year directing research at U.S. universities: $45,000,000
2/89Amount Drexel Burnham spent copying documents requested by the SEC for its investigation: $46,000,000
10/03Estimated market value of the usable body parts of an adult human: $46,000,000
11/87Amount lawyers spent advertising on TV in 1986: $47,000,000
3/94Legal fees paid by the DOE since 1990 to defend its contractors in suits over radiation exposure: $47,000,000
4/01Tons of food suitable for human consumption wasted in the United States each year: 48,000,000
9/05Year by which Brazil’s government will have switched its computers entirely to open-source software: 2010
Amount they expect the switch will save each year: $48,000,000
4/08Amount that Rudy Giuliani’s campaign spent to win a single Republican delegate: $48,000,000
Amount it would have cost him to win the nomination at this rate, expressed as a percentage of Bill Gates’s net worth: 97
4/01Gallons by which daily U.S. oil consumption would drop if SUVs’ average fuel efficiency increased by 3 mpg: 49,000,000
8/06Minimum value of free, privately sponsored trips taken since 2000 by members of Congress and their staffs: $49,000,000
4/94Total value of the 96,000 refund checks returned to the I.R.S. as undeliverable last year: $50,000,000
1/99Estimated amount the Pentagon will spend this year on Viagra: $50,000,000
2/04Amount earmarked by the House last December to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa: $50,000,000
11/95Campaign funds raised as of June 1995 by the major Republican presidential candidates: $50,049,048
Estimated number of primaries that had occurred in 1992 by the time major Democratic candidates had raised this much: 41
4/84Americans who say they have quit smoking: 33,000,000
Americans who say they haven’t: 53,000,000
8/89Amount the federal government spent last year to develop a vaccine for AIDS: $53,925,000
2/89Total volume of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, in cubic feet: 54,000,000
6/85Potholes in the United States: 55,961,000
6/01Amount Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill earned last year as CEO of Alcoa: $56,400,000
Rank of Alcoa among the worst U.S. polluters during O’Neill’s tenure, according to the National Wildlife Federation: 1
11/88Total amount paid in residuals to the 10,000 members of the Writers Guild last year: $57,037,100
Amount the Walt Disney Company paid its chairman in salary, bonuses, and stock options last year: $37,700,000
8/89Amount the Pentagon spent last year to develop defenses against biological weapons: $58,800,000
2/85American adults who read below the ninth-grade level: 60,000,000
1/89Estimated amount that Nicaraguans living in the United States send home to their families, each year: $60,000,000
4/92New tax revenue that will be generated this year as a result of ending the deduction for cosmetic surgery: $60,000,000
7/05Amount slated to be spent by 2007 to build a theme park in honor of Charles Dickens: £62,000,000
5/05Average amount the Bush Administration has spent per year on contracts with P.R. firms: $62,500,000
Average amount spent during the second term of the Clinton Administration: $32,000,000
7/03Total child support that went unpaid in Clark County, Nevada, in the last year: $63,100,000
12/04Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran: $63,506,000
3/09Amount Italy spent last year to bail out its Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheese industries: $65,000,000