9/86Amount spent by the United States in 1985 on military operations in the Third World: $137,600,000,000
Amount spent guarding the country’s borders: $9,200,000,000
2/88Dollars bought by Japan, Germany, and Britain in 1987 to support the currency’s value: 78,000,000,000
1/89Percentage of Israeli Jews who favor transferring all Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 49
10/89Ratio of Soviet arms sales to Third World countries to U.S. arms sales to Third World countries in 1986: 4:1
Ratio today: 1:1
12/89Number of U.S. companies financed with junk bonds that have failed to meet loan obligations this year: 20
Number of developing countries that have failed to meet loan obligations to the World Bank this year: 9
12/89Total value of the loans disbursed to developing countries in 1988: $92,000,000,000
Total debt service paid by developing countries in 1988: $142,000,000,000
12/89Amount by which cash deposits exceeded cash withdrawals at banks in Miami in 1988: $4,488,124,000
1/90Number of condoms the U.S. government has distributed to developing countries since 1981: 4,535,900,000
12/90Percentage of all hostages held by Iraq who are from Third World countries: 98
3/90Portion of all deaths worldwide that are of children under the age of 5 in developing countries: 1/3
6/90Estimated portion of Czechoslovakia’s hard-currency export earnings that come from arms sales: 1/3
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
1/91Combined value of the mortgages given by East Harlem bank branches to local residents in 1989: $2,413,000
Combined value of the deposits in East Harlem bank branches in 1989: $221,000,000
10/91Percentage change, since 1989, in Soviet arms sales to the Third World: -7
Percentage change, since 1989, in U.S. arms sales to the Third World: +131
12/91Amount of money electronically transferred every minute among U.S. banks: $819,300,000
5/91Percentage change, since 1989, in total assets held by U.S. banks that the FDIC considers “threatened”: +73
11/92Percentage of arms-transfer agreements signed by Third World countries in 1986 that involved the United States: 8
Percentage of arms-transfer agreements signed by Third World countries last year that involved the United States: 57
7/92Chances that a dollar in a Hungarian’s savings account is deposited in a Hungarian bank: 1 in 5
11/93Percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who say the P.L.O. needs “democratic reform”: 88
11/93Number of Palestinians worldwide, per square mile of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 2,503
6/93Percentage change, since 1991, in the number of Americans who lost uninsured savings deposited at failed banks: +1,500
8/93Portion of all foreign direct investment in developing countries last year that went to Asia: 1/2
9/93Daily wage the Israeli government pays Palestinians banned from working in Israel to sweep the West Bank: $9
Number of brooms the government has sent to the Occupied Territories since the ban took effect in March: 80,000
10/94Chances that an arms sale made to a developing country last year was made by the United States: 3 in 4
11/94Tons of talonas, Lithuania’s temporary currency since 1992, that have been converted into toilet paper this year: 30
3/94Change, since 1982, in the number of developing countries under military rule: +11
5/94Amount investor George Soros lost speculating in the world currency market last February 14: $600,000,000
6/98Number of institutions that are on a “higher moral ground” than the World Bank, according to its president: 0
Amount the Bank spent last year to gild the ceilings of its Washington headquarters: $400,000
7/98Percentage change since 1994 in the annual number of independent commercial banks opening in the U.S.: +276
3/99Average hourly outflow from Brazil ‘s currency reserves on January 13 and 14, after the real was devalued: $214,000,000
3/99Amount Fortune magazine estimates that Michael Jordan NBA career has contributed to the U.S. economy: $10,000,000,000
3/99Average amount each American living in poverty would receive if 1998’s budget surplus were divided among them: $1,967
5/99Briefing books with Al Gore’s photo over Dan Quayle’s bio printed for the 1999 Davos, Switzerland, economics forum: 3,100
5/99Percentage of the 125 people included in 1999’s Flemings Who’s Who in Central Banking who list no “leisure pursuits”: 90
6/99Estimated portion of the $4.8 billion that the IMF loaned Russia last July that has been lost or stolen: 1/5
1/00Estimated gross global product per capita in the year 1000: $133
Amount by which it had changed by the year 1700: +$31
1/00Estimated bushels of maize paid annually to the Aztec rulers of the city of Tenochtitlán by their subjects: 210,000
11/00Number of former Soviet republics whose per capita GDP was higher in 1997 than in 1990: 0
4/00Total return on a dollar invested in the “socially responsible” Domini 400 Social Index in 1990: $5.75
Number funded “in memory of Alfred Nobel” by the Bank of Sweden: 31
6/01Percentage change since 1989 in the annual number of paternity tests conducted at U.S. blood-bank-accredited labs: +262
9/01Amount the federal government paid Harvard researchers in the 1990s to help design Russian market reforms: $40,000,000
12/02Ratio of the annual tariffs that developed nations impose on one another to those they impose on developing nations: 1:4
4/02Number of years that the University of Missouri’s Kenneth L. Lay Chair in International Economics has been vacant: 3.5
6/02Number of billionaires worldwide last year and this year, respectively: 580, 497
Rank of the United States among countries that lost the largest number of billionaires in the last year: 1
8/02Extra amount Oregon charges per year to register a hybrid gas/electric car in compensation for lost gasoline taxes: $15
9/02Ratio of U.S. external debt to that of all developing countries combined: 1:1
9/02Ratio of the amount the U.S. pays to service this debt to the total amount developing countries pay: 1:15
11/03Number of banks and suppliers that Gulf War veterans are suing for aiding Iraq’s purchases of weapons and chemicals: 44
2/03Percentage of Americans surveyed in October who chose the word “hopeful” to describe their feelings about the economy: 37
Percentage who chose “angry,” “worried,” or “confused”: 59
2/03Minimum amount S&P 500 corporations owe in retirement benefits for which they have set aside no funds: $458,000,000,000
4/03Percentage of California’s economy that is accounted for by agriculture: 7
Percentage of the state’s water that is used for agriculture: 43
1/04Estimated percentage of Afghanistan’s GDP last year accounted for by opium exports: 39
10/04Number of banks robbed in Davenport, Iowa, while John Kerry and George Bush gave speeches there on August 4: 3
2/04Estimated percentage of the 2.9 million U.S. jobs lost since March 2001 that have not reappeared abroad: 83
4/04Number of cents a U.S. woman earned for every dollar that a U.S. man did in 1983 and 2000, respectively: 80.4, 79.7
4/04Factor by which the average pay of a pro baseball player and a Fortune 500 CEO, respectively, have increased since 1973: 16, 4
8/04Minimum number of developing countries whose adolescent birth rate is lower than that of Phillips County, Arkansas: 94
10/05Rank of 2004 among the most fiscally reckless years in U.S. history, according to the comptroller general: 1
11/05Number of consecutive years that the U.S. median income has failed to increase: 5
12/05Average number of credit cards per U.S. household: 12.7
12/05Percentage of middle-class Americans who spent more than a third of their income on home ownership in 1975: 2.8
Percentage in 2001: 13.5
2/05Percentage change since March 2002 in total U.S. corporate profits, as valued in dollars: +39
Percentage change as valued in euros: -8
2/05Chances of a U.S.”currency crisis” within five years, according to former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker: 3 in 4
2/05Number of free-trade agreements between developing nations and developed nations in 1990 and today, respectively: 23, 109
Projected change in world income over fifteen years if all developing nations were to enter such deals today: +$112,000,000,000
Projected change, in this scenario, in the total income of developing nations: -$21,500,000,000
3/05Amount to which a San Diego defense analyst’s payments to Social Security had appreciated when he retired in 1994: $261,372
Amount to which he calculated they would have grown if he had invested in a Dow Jones index fund instead: $248,166
4/05Rank of Colombia’s stock exchange among the best performers tracked by The Economist last year: 1
6/05Projected year by which U.S. Treasury bonds will sink to junk status, on current fiscal policy: 2026
9/05Increase in the total value of U.S. residential property since 2000, expressed as a percentage of GDP: 60
9/05Number of consecutive years that the value of housing in Japan has dropped since its housing bubble burst: 14
9/05Rank of “time to buy” in the futures markets, among the first thoughts Brit Hume said he had after the London bombings: 1
9/05Total annual spending controlled by functionally illiterate U.S. consumers: $414,000,000,000
1/06Portion of its currency reserves that Venezuela says it transferred from U.S. banks to Swiss banks last fall: 2/3
10/06Average salary package last year among all full-time employees of Goldman Sachs, including support staff: $521,000
10/06Chances of a recession in 2007, according to a chief economist of Merrill Lynch: 2 in 5
10/06Percentage change since 1999 in the number of consumer complaints about harassment by U.S. debt-collection agencies: +564
2/06Factor by which the total amount that U.S. pension plans have invested in hedge funds today exceeds that in 1990: 100
5/06Estimated percentage share of global GDP in 1974 that came from “developed” and “emerging” nations, respectively: 61, 39
Estimated percentage from those nations today: 49, 51
6/06Year that a signboard tallying the U.S. national debt was erected near Times Square: 1989
Year in which it is expected to run out of digits: 2007
6/06Percentage of Chinese who say the free market is “the best system on which to base the future of the world”: 74
7/06Estimated change since 2001 in the total number of U.S. private-sector jobs: +1,900,000
Estimated number of new private-sector jobs created by government spending during that time: 2,800,000
7/06Amount that insects add to the U.S. economy each year, according to one invertebrate advocacy group: $57,000,000,000
9/06Percentage of U.S. income in 1983 and today, respectively, that went to the top 1 percent of earners: 9, 16
9/06Average income of an African American today, expressed as a percentage of the average income of a white American: 74
Average income of an American child of Mexican immigrants, expressed in the same terms: 71
5/07Number of L.A. branches of Bank of America that now offer credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers: 51
4/08Estimated portion of worldwide immigration that is into Second or Third World nations: 2/5
4/08Factor by which the increase in income inequality in developed nations since 1981 has exceeded that in developing nations: 2
6/08Average number of cases handled each year by the U.S. government’s Mutilated Currency Division: 20,000
6/08Percentage change since last year in the number of people receiving assistance from U.S. food banks: +20
Percentage change since then in the amount of food that the federal government has donated to the banks: –9