| Oct 2006 | -
Portion of U.S. banking assets in 1996 that were controlled by the ten largest U.S. banks: 1/4
Portion today: 1/2
| Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)
|
| Oct 2006 | -
Average salary package last year among all full-time employees of Goldman Sachs, including support staff: $521,000
| Source: Goldman, Sachs & Co. (N.Y.C.)
|
| Oct 2006 | -
Chances of a recession in 2007, according to a chief economist of Merrill Lynch: 2 in 5
| Source: David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)
|
| Oct 2006 | -
Percentage change since 1999 in the number of consumer complaints about harassment by U.S. debt-collection agencies: +564
| Source: Federal Trade Commission (Washington)
|
| Oct 2006 | -
Minimum value of “small business” contracts given out by the U.S. last year that went to Fortune 500 firms: $1,200,000,000
| Source: Eagle Eye Publishers, Inc. (Fairfax, Va.)
|
| Jul 2006 | - Estimated change since 2001 in the total number of U.S. private-sector
jobs: +1,900,000
| Source: Economic Policy Institute (Washington)
|
| Jul 2006 | - Percentage of U.S. workers who say they are confident that they will be able to live comfortably after retirement: 68
| Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute (Washington)
|
| Jan 2006 | - Chances that a U.S. company settling a corporate crime case will illegally deduct some or all of the settlement to the IRS: 3 in 5
| Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office
|
| Jan 2006 | - Percentage of U.S. CEO vacancies that are filled from outside the company: 40
| Source: RHR International Company (Wood Dale, Ill.)
|
| Jan 2006 | - Average amount it costs U.S. companies to process a query through a call center: $6.62
| Source: The Center for Customer Driven Quality (West Lafayette, Ind.)
|
| Jan 2006 | - Percentage change since 1996 in the amount that drug companies spend on direct-to-consumer advertising: +420
| Source: TNS Media Intelligence (N.Y.C.)/Harvard School of Public Health (Boston)
|
| Dec 2005 | - Minimum number of U.S. generals in Iraq using private security companies for their personal security: 4
| Source: U.S. Central Command (Baghdad)
|
| Oct 2005 | - Chance that a U.S. MBA obtained since 1980 was awarded to a woman: 1 in 3
| Source: U.S. Department of Education
|
| Sep 2005 | - Percentage markup that Abbott Laboratories charged in 2001 on solutions of sodium chloride, i.e., salt water : 20,735
| Source: U.S. Department of Justice
|
| Aug 2005 | - Number of corpses
shipped on Delta Air Lines last year : 42,175
| Source: Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
|
| Mar 2005 | - Ratio of active workers at General Motors to retirees on its pension rolls: 2:5
| Source: General Motors Corporation (Detroit)
|
| Feb 2005 | -
Percentage change since March 2002 in total U.S. corporate profits, as valued in dollars: +39
| Source: Silvercrest Asset Management Group (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jan 2005 | - Rank of Wal-Mart among Mexico's largest private employers : 1
| Source: Wal-Mart (Teotihuacan, Mexico)
|
| Dec 2004 | - Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran : $63,506,000
| Source: Halliburton (Houston, Tex.)
|
| Dec 2004 | - Percentage salary cut that Delta's CEO announced this fall that he would take through the end of the year : 100
| Source: Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
|
| Nov 2004 | - Minimum number of customers trampled to death in September at the opening of a Saudi Arabian
Ikea : 2
| Source: Ghasson A. Al-Sulaiman Co. Ltd. (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
|
| Nov 2004 | - Percentage of Britons over the age of 50 who have hurt themselves attempting to open product packaging : 71
| Source: De Vere Media (Hampshire, England)
|
| Nov 2004 | - Number of U.S. McDonald’s franchises whose drive-through order taking has been outsourced to another state : 2
| Source: McDonald's Corporation (Chicago)
|
| Nov 2004 | - Price paid on eBay last November for two bottles of turkey-and-gravy soda : $63
| Source: eBay Inc. (San Jose, Calif.)
|
| Sep 2004 | - Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003 : 20
| Source: U.S. Attorney's Office (Birmingham, Ala.)
|
| Aug 2004 | - Minimum amount that Wal-Mart has received in subsidies from state and local governments since 1980 : $625,000,000
| Source: Good Jobs First (Washington)
|
| Jul 2004 | - Ratio of deaths of U.S. contractors worldwide in the last three months to those between April and September last year : 2:1
| Source: U.S. Department of Labor
|
| Jul 2004 | - Value of the "political risk insurance" that the U.S. government is providing two private investors in Iraq : $30,000,000
| Source: Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Washington)
|
| Jul 2004 | - Number of U.S. companies whose applications for such insurance are pending : 34
| Source: Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Washington)
|
| Jul 2004 | - Number of days this year that the Small Business Administration's largest loan program shut down for lack of funds : 8
| Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
|
| Jun 2004 | - Number of the ten missile-defense components to be deployed this fall that have been field-tested as a system : 0
| Source: General Accounting Office (Washington)/Council for a Livable World (Washington)
|
| May 2004 | - Percentage of senior management positions in medium-size Russian
companies that are held by women : 42
| Source: Grant Thornton International (London)
|
| May 2004 | - Percentage of senior management positions at equivalent U.S. companies that are : 20
| Source: Grant Thornton International (London)
|
| May 2004 | - Total overruns at Boston's "Big Dig" attributed to mistakes and mismanagement by the Bechtel Corporation : $1,100,000,000
| Source: Boston Globe
|
| Apr 2004 | - Percentage change in Mexico's inflation-adjusted minimum wage since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 : -21
| Source: Carlos Salas, Universidad AutUnoma Metropolitana (Iztapalapa, Mexico)
|
| Apr 2004 | - Year in which Citigroup formed a company called Buconero, Italian for "black hole," to help Parmalat conceal debt : 1999
| Source: Division of Corporations (Dover, Del.)
|
| Apr 2004 | - Factor by which a blimp being developed for the U.S. government by Lockheed Martin exceeds the size of Goodyear's : 25
| Source: Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Md.)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Years of insurance that the money lost annually to health-care fraud and overbilling could buy every uninsured U.S. child : 3
| Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/General Accounting Office (Washington)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Year in which then-congressman Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech criticizing war profiteering by Brown & Root : 1966
| Source: Congressional Record, Vol. 112
|
| Mar 2004 | - Ratio of the number of privately contracted military workers in Iraq to the number of British troops there : 5:4
| Source: Coalition Provisional Authority (Baghdad)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Days after Italian magistrates began investigating food conglomerate Parmalat last December that its former CEO was jailed : 8
| Source: Il Sole 24 ORE (Milan)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Ratio of 2004 Bush campaign donations from Merrill Lynch employees to those from Bechtel employees : 60:1
| Source: Center for Responsive Politics (Washington)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer's absence : $34
| Source: Dmitry Petrov (Moscow)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Price a British company charges for its Purring Kitty software, which converts a mobile phone into a "discreet massager" : $2.65
| Source: Vibelet (London)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Percentage of Chinese
exports to the U.S. accounted for by merchandise sold at Wal-Mart : 10
| Source: Wal-Mart (Bentonville, Ark.)/Department of Commerce (Washington)
|
| Mar 2004 | - Estimated value of Senate majority leader Bill Frist's household's stake in HCA, his family's hospital chain : $26,000,000
| Source: Physicians for a National Health Program (Chicago)
|
| Mar 2004 | -
Settlement
Philip Morris paid the girl's family last May : $2,000,000
| Source: Philip Morris USA (Richmond)
|
| Jan 2004 | - Amount such a weapon can reportedly fetch on the international black market : $5,000
| Source: Independent (London)
|
| Jan 2004 | - Months after a data firm was hired to run MATRIX that its CEO resigned, admitting to past drug
smuggling : 18
| Source: Seisint, Inc. (Boca Raton, Fla.)/Qorvis Communications (McLean, Va.)
|
| Jun 2003 | - Days after the U.S. invaded Iraq that Sony trademarked "Shock & Awe" for video games: 1
| Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
|
| Feb 2003 | - Minimum amount S&P 500 corporations owe in retirement benefits for which they have set aside no funds: $458,000,000,000
| Source: Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)
|
| Oct 2002 | - Percentage of Americans who blame Bill Clinton's "moral failings" for the current business scandals: 51
| Source: The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)
|
| Oct 2002 | - Percentage who blame President Bush's "close ties to big corporations" for the current business scandals: 46
| Source: The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)
|
| Sep 2002 | - Number of appearances made by corporate representatives on U.S. network nightly newscasts last year: 955
| Source: Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (N.Y.C.)
|
| Sep 2002 | - Percentage of U.S. corporate executives who admit to having cheated at golf: 82
| Source: Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (White Plains, N.Y.)
|
| Sep 2002 | - Number of square feet of retail space per American: 27
| Source: Retail MAXIM (N.Y.C.)
|
| Aug 2002 | - Number of students at Illinois's Aurora University who have earned academic credit for a course in "business
golf": 29
| Source: Aurora University (Aurora, Ill.)
|
| Jun 2002 | - Total public
financing for which Enron has received approval since 1992: $7,219,000,000
| Source: Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)
|
| Jun 2002 | - Date on which the first CD of the Brooklyn rock band I Am the World Trade Center was released: 5/8/01
| Source: Kindercore Records (Boulder, Colo.)
|
| May 2002 | - Estimated percentage by which British arms sales to African countries next year will exceed such sales in 1999: 400
| Source: Campaign Against Arms Trade (London)
|
| May 2002 | - Percentage of Enron's 3,100 subsidiaries at the time of its bankruptcy that were located in other countries: 64
| Source: Enron 2000 Annual Report/Harper's research
|
| May 2002 | - Percentage of writers of U.S. clinical-practice guidelines who have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies: 58
| Source: Allan Detsky, University of Toronto
|
| Apr 2002 | - Minimum number of Israeli high school students who wrote Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last fall to refuse in advance: 62
| Source: Jewish Peace Fellowship (Nyack, N.Y.)
|
| Apr 2002 | - Minutes before the President spoke at a jobs program last winter that protesters heard the event had been canceled: 10
| Source: Portland Peaceful Response Coalition (Portland, Oreg.)
|
| Mar 2002 | - Number of U.S. professional-sports stadiums whose corporate namesakes have filed for bankruptcy since December 1999: 5
| Source: Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon (Eugene)
|
| Mar 2002 | - Percentage change since January 2001 in the share price of the largest private prison-management company: +440
| Source: Corrections Corporation of America (Nashville)
|
| Dec 2001 | - Page on which the New York Times reported the EPA's 7-year extension of genetically modified corn sales last fall: C6
| Source:
Harper's research
|
| Dec 2001 | - Total number of bids placed on Bidforsurgery.com since last year: 12,600
| Source: Medicine Online Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.)
|
| Sep 2001 | - Percentage change since 1999 in U.S. sales of hardcover books for adults and children, respectively: -12, +13
| Source: Association of American Publishers (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jul 2001 | - Number of Coca-Cola commercials that the company contributed to the Library of Congress last November: 20,000
| Source: Library of Congress
|
| Apr 2001 | - Percentage change between 1999 and 2000 in the number of audits of U.S. corporations: 28
| Source: Internal Revenue Service (Washington)
|
| Mar 2001 | - Percentage of global economic activity accounted for by the world's 200 largest corporations: 27.5
| Source: Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)
|
| Mar 2001 | - Percentage of the world's population that the world's largestcorporations employ: 0.8
| Source: Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)
|
| Dec 2000 | - Price for which an eight-year-old Colorado girl was offered for sale by her mother over the Internet last year: $4,000
| Source: Arapahoe District Court (Englewood, Colo.)
|
| Sep 2000 | - Ratio of Lockheed Martin's 1999 sales to the $13 million fine it will pay for giving secret technology to China: 1,962:1
| Source: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Bethesda, Md.)/U.S. Department of State
|
| Sep 2000 | - Ratio of the number of copies of
The Great Gatsby
sold each month in the U.S. to the number sold in the author's lifetime: 5:3
| Source: Simon &Schuster (N.Y.C.)/Harold Ober Associates (N.Y.C.)
|
| Aug 2000 | -
Bounty placed on the head of any U.S. DEA agent last January by Mexico's Juárez drug cartel: $200,000
| Source: Drug Enforcement Administration (El Paso, Tex.)
|
| Aug 2000 | - Ratio of the number of corporate mergers signed under the Clinton Administration to those signed under Reagan: 3:1
| Source: Thomson Financial Securities Data (Newark, N.J.)
|
| Jun 2000 | - Estimated minimum value of the diamonds sold to De Beers by Angolan rebels since 1992: $1,000,000,000
| Source: Human Rights Watch (London)
|
| Apr 2000 | - Factor by which combined U.S. individual charitable donations in 1998 exceeded those of foundations and corporations: 6
| Source: Ann E. Kaplan, Ed., Giving USA, American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy (Sewickley, Pa.)
|
| Feb 2000 | - Number of the 65 international trade disputes settled through the WTO that led to a change in national policy or law: 59
| Source: Global Trade Watch (Washington)
|
| Feb 2000 | - Number of the 10 international trade disputes settled through the WTO involving environmental or public heath issues that led to a weakening of national laws: 10
| Source: Global Trade Watch (Washington)
|
| Feb 2000 | - Ratio of eToys' 1999 net sales through last September to what it spent on marketing and advertising: 2:3
| Source: eToys, Inc. (Santa Monica, Calif.)
|
| Jan 2000 | - Months after publishing
The Communist Manifesto
that Karl Marx became editor of a newspaper funded by industrialists: 2
| Source:
The Marx-Engels Correspondence, Wiedenfeld &Nicolson (London)
|
| Jan 2000 | - Months' worth of salary lost by Groucho Marx in 1929's stock market crash: 28
| Source: Groucho Marx, Groucho and Me, B. Geis Associates (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jan 2000 | - Number of the ten largest multinational corporations that produce automobiles or gasoline: 9
| Source:
Multinational Monitor (Washington)
|
| Nov 1999 | - Average percentage of revenue of a Fortune 500 company last year that was profit: 5.3
| Source:
Fortune (N.Y.C.)
|
| Oct 1999 | - Portion of resulting from -18% change in domestic discretionary spending required to fund Congress's proposed tax cuts that will go to corporations: 9/10
| Source: Citizens for Tax Justice (Washington)
|
| Oct 1999 | - Value of Pentagon-brokered U.S. arms sales last year to Taiwan, expressed as a percentage of such sales to Israel: 92
| Source: U.S. Department of Defense
|
| Oct 1999 | - Amount of corporate funding or advertising accepted by the Pacifica Radio Network's five stations since 1949: 0
| Source: KPFA (Berkeley, Calif.)
|
| Sep 1999 | - Percentage of the proceeds of an AIDS fund-raising bike ride across Texas last fall used to cover “production costs”: 85
| Source: Pallotta Teamworks (Los Angeles)
|
| Sep 1999 | - Portion of all U.S. arms sales abroad between 1993 and 1997 that were brokered by the Pentagon: 1/2
| Source: Federation of American Scientists (Washington)
|
| Aug 1999 | - Tons of uranium from Russia's nuclear arsenal that the country will sell to a U.S. company over the next twenty years: 500
| Source: U.S. Department of Energy
|
| Jul 1999 | - Fee that Nike offered Ralph Nader to say “another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes” in a TV ad: $25,000
| Source: Ralph Nader (Washington)
|
| Jul 1999 | - Chance that a pair of women's shoes sold in the U.S. is sold by Nine West: 1 in 5
| Source: Nine West Group Inc. (White Plains, NY)
|
| May 1999 | - Portion of the domestic market that the proposed merger between Exxon and Mobil will control: 1/7
| Source: American Petroleum Institute (Washington)/Exxon Corp. (Irving, Tex.)
|
| May 1999 | - Percentage change since 1997 in the number of antitrust investigations opened by the Federal Trade Commission: +234
| Source: Federal Trade Commission (Washington)
|
| Apr 1999 | - Settlement paid 3 female federal
inmates last year after guards sold them as sex
slaves to male prisoners: $500,000
| Source: Rosen, Bien &Asaro (San Francisco)
|
| Apr 1999 | - Number of the 9 prison employees named in the women's lawsuit, charged with selling the women as sex
slaves to male prisoners, who were charged with a crime: 0
| Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons (Dublin, Calif.)
|
| Apr 1999 | - Number of U.S. companies and groups licensed to sell merchandise bearing the Vatican's Jubilee 2000 logo: 31
| Source: National Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington)
|
| Apr 1999 | - Percentage of Iceland's gene pool to which Decode Genetics plans to acquire exclusive commercial rights this year: 100
| Source: Mannvernd, Icelanders for Ethics in Science and Medicine (Reykjavík, Iceland)
|
| Mar 1999 | - Percentage change in Iraq's
oil
sales since 1997: +45
| Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
|
| Mar 1999 | - Estimated percentage of Indonesian businesses that are in bankruptcy: 70
| Source: The World Bank (Washington)/International Labor Organization (N.Y.C.)
|
| Mar 1999 | - Size of the business loan given Amazon.com last April after 11 consecutive months without a profit: $275,000,000
| Source: Amazon.com (Seattle)
|
| Mar 1999 | - Severance pay Biondi received last year after he was fired by Universal Pictures: $30,000,000
| Source: Viacom Inc. (N.Y.C.)/Harper's research
|
| Feb 1999 | - Estimated chances that a U.S. corporate merger will result in short- and long-term shareholder losses: 2 in 3
| Source: Professor Mark Sirower, The Wharton School (Philadelphia)
|
| Feb 1999 | - Average profit U.S. businesses earn per worker for every $1 spent on salary and benefits: $2.15
| Source: Saratoga Institute (Santa Clara, Calif.)
|
| Feb 1999 | - Number of products licensed last year by the New York entrepreneur who trademarked the sequence 01-01-00: 1,000
| Source: Walker Group/Designs (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jan 1999 | - Ratio of total U.S. disaster aid to Honduras last year to average annual U.S. military aid to Honduras in the 1980s: 6:7
| Source: Latin America Working Group (Washington)
|
| Jan 1999 | - Months after boxing promoter Don King was acquitted of fraud last year that he took his jurors to the Bahamas: 2
| Source: Don King Productions (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
|
| Dec 1998 | - Number of U.S. corporations that have signed up as Adopt-a-Minefield sponsors since the program began last December: 5
| Source: The United Nations Association of the USA (N.Y.C.)
|
| Nov 1998 | - Number of “I Slept with Kenneth Starr” bumper stickers sold by a Little Rock gift shop since last April: 990
| Source: The Design Center (Little Rock, Ark.)
|
| Nov 1998 | - Number of heart attacks on Wall Street the day the market dropped 513 points last August: 2
| Source: Dr. Ira Schulman, NYU Downtown Hospital (N.Y.C.)
|
| Nov 1998 | - Number of heart attacks on Wall Street when the market rose 288 points: 3
| Source: Dr. Ira Schulman, NYU Downtown Hospital (N.Y.C.)
|
| Oct 1998 | - Number of “Assault Recovery” insurance policies sold to school employees in the last year: 207
| Source: Horace Mann Life Insurance Company (Springfield, Ill.)
|
| Oct 1998 | - Estimated U.S. taxes that multinational corporations
legally avoided this year by using foreign accounts: $10,100,000,000
| Source: Joint Committee on Taxation (Washington)
|
| Sep 1998 | - Percentage change since 1995 in U.S. sales of merchandise featuring The Three Stooges: +300
| Source: Comedy III Productions (Glendale, Calif.)
|
| Aug 1998 | - Number of bids received by the Russian government last May when it put its remaining national oil company up for sale: 0
| Source: Emerging Market Services (N.Y.C.)
|
| Aug 1998 | - Number of $530 monogrammed Louis Vuitton World Cup soccer balls sold in the U.S. since last April: 87
| Source: Louis Vuitton North America, Inc. (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jul 1998 | - Number of corporate spies in the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals: 6,600
| Source: Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (Alexandria, Va.)
|
| Jul 1998 | - Months before the 1929 stock market crash that Forbes magazine noted the “heroic scale” of U.S. economic growth: 4
| Source:
Forbes (N.Y.C.)
|
| Jul 1998 | - Maximum business deduction allowed U.S. employers per employee parking space they provide: $175
| Source: Internal Revenue Service
|
| Jun 1998 | - Percentage change since 1993 in U.S. sales of manual push mowers: +150
| Source: American Lawn Mower (Shelbyville, Ind.)
|
| Jun 1998 | - Ratio of California prison jobs created between 1984 and 1994 to state jobs in higher education cut during that time: 3:1
| Source: Justice Policy Institute (Washington)
|
| Jun 1998 | - Number of jars of Exxon Valdez
oil sludge sold by the state of Alaska since last November to help pay cleanup costs: 850
| Source: Department of Environmental Conservation (Juneau)
|
| Jun 1998 | - Percentage change since 1996 in Amway sales in China: +183
| Source: Amway Corporation (Ada, Mich.)
|
| Jun 1998 | - Total value of all Japanese capital held in no-interest savings accounts or cash: $5,544,889,025,400
| Source: Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)
|
| May 1998 | - Ratio of the estimated cost of Kenneth Starr's investigation to projected ad sales for the last episode of Seinfeld : 1:1
| Source:
Harper's research/Advertising Age (Chicago)
|
| May 1998 | - Length, in pages, of the Senate's new report on the financing of the 1996 Democratic campaigns: 1,112
| Source: Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
|
| May 1998 | - Number of the Senate's report on the financing of the 1996 Democratic campaigns 33 chapters that are devoted to the issue of campaign-finance reform: 1
| Source: Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
|
| May 1998 | - Number of House votes that Representative Jay Kim's 1997 campaign-finance-fraud conviction will cause him to miss: 0
| Source: Office of Representative Jay Kim (Washington)
|
| May 1998 | - Number of countries that have received U.S. military aid since 1995 in preparation for NATO expansion: 19
| Source: World Policy Institute (N.Y.C.)
|
| May 1998 | - Chance that a U.S. high school student owns a promotional item from a cigarette company: 1 in 3
| Source: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (Lebanon, N.H.)
|
| May 1998 | - Amount for which a Missouri inmate offered to sell one of his organs last winter to pay legal fees: $50,000
| Source: H. Andrew Chastain, Crossroads Correctional Center (Cameron, Mo.)
|
| May 1998 | - Number of minutes that Mir's Russian
cosmonauts spent this year advertising a “space pen” live on QVC: 15
| Source: QVC (West Chester, Pa.)
|
| May 1998 | - Number of weeks after the Monica Lewinsky story broke that a Denver company began selling “presidential kneepads”: 3
| Source: Simple Products (Denver)
|
| Apr 1998 | - Portion of IRS audits that are conducted on large corporations: 1/500
| Source: IRS
|
| Apr 1998 | - Portion of fines levied and underpayments cited by the IRS each year for which large corporations are responsible: 1/2
| Source: IRS
|