10/84American firms doing business in El Salvador: 51
10/84Jobs created by every billion dollars of U.S. government defense spending: 21,000
11/84Dollars spent by Americans annually for packaged cookies: $2,400,000,000
Dollars spent by Americans annually for pornography: $7,000,000,000
11/84Estimated hours of work that are lost each year to alcoholism: 2,500,000,000
Estimated hours of work that are lost each year because of menstrual cramps: 576,000,000
12/84Estimated number of defense-industry jobs that would be lost in the event of a nuclear freeze: 250,000
12/84Percentage of Americans who, in 1981, thought their chances of surviving a nuclear war were fifty-fifty: 32
12/84Total number of recordings of “White Christmas” that have been sold: 150,431,669
12/84Percentage of Americans who believe their presence at a sports event influences its outcome: 25
12/84Amount spent by the U.S. government on advertising in 1983: $228,857,200
Amount spent by Coca-Cola: $282,150,000
By corporations: 75
3/84Average price of a gram of cocaine in Los Angeles: $125
3/84The District of Columbia’s rank (with states) in per capita alcohol consumption: 1
3/84Copies of Playboy or Penthouse purchased per thousand people in Des Moines: 86
In New York City: 28
4/84Government estimate of the dollar value of the untaxed underground economy: $222,000,000,000
4/84Americans who say they have quit smoking: 33,000,000
Americans who say they haven’t: 53,000,000
5/84Percentage of black baseball players in leadership positions (catcher, shortstop, second base): 15
Of a female Columbia University MBA: $40,022
6/84Percentage of baseball players signed to professional contracts who never appear in a major league game: 92
6/84Number of people who have applied for the job of executioner in New Jersey: 50
7/84Amount that a nuclear freeze would save the U.S. between now and the year 2000: $400,000,000,000
8/84Value of marijuana, opium, heroin, and hashish smuggled out of Lebanon via Israel last year: $400,000,000
8/84Number of South African athletes who have changed their citizenship in order to compete in the 1984 Olympics: 6
8/84Percentage of Chicago restaurant managers who say they allow patrons to smoke cigarettes: 84
9/84Cost to consumers of “protecting” one job in the automobile industry via import restrictions: $85,400
9/84Percentage of Americans who say they would not accept a job if a lie-detector test was required: 55
1/85Bottles of Scotch imported by the Ethiopian government to celebrate its tenth anniversary: 480,000
1/85Number of pieces of paper processed by American businesses in 1981: 850,000,000,000
1/85Value of counterfeit products manufactured or sold in the U.S. last year: $19,000,000,000
1/85Percentage of Russian soldiers God will kill at the end of the world, according to Jerry Falwell: 83
10/85Percentage of the marijuana smoked in the United States that is imported, according to the DEA: 88
According to NORML: 45
10/85Percentage increase in capital spending by businesses during the first Reagan Administration: 23.4
During the Carter Administration: 32
11/85Percentage of Fortune 500 companies that tested employees and job applicants for illegal drug use in 1982: 10
Percentage that test today: 25
11/85Weekly sales per square foot near the cash registers in the average supermarket: $22.80
Per square foot elsewhere in the store: $7.76
U.S. tests: 13
Portion of those addicts who are under 21: 2/3
2/85Percentage increase since 1980 in the number of Houston businesses filing for bankruptcy each month: 276
3/85Average number of maggots the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits per 100 grams of canned mushrooms: 20
4/85Average number of Health and Human Services Department employees it takes to answer a letter to the secretary: 55
4/85Number of manufacturing jobs New England has gained since 1982: 64,650
4/85Total annual expenditures of U.S. corporations on employee-education programs: $60,000,000,000
Total annual expenditure of U.S. four-year public and private colleges and universities: $60,000,000,000
4/85Portion of U.S. retail sales accounted for by franchise businesses: 1/3
4/85Percentage of supermarket buying decisions that are made in the store: 65
4/85Number of beer cans manufactured since they were introduced in 1935: 610,000,000,000
Number in which U.S., British, or Canadian corporations own a controlling interest: 4
5/85Total horsepower at the 1984 Indianapolis 500: 23,000
At the 1984 Kentucky Derby: 1,000
6/85Percentage of black high-school graduates under 25 who are unemployed: 26.8
Percentage of white high-school dropouts under 25 who are unemployed: 26.2
7/85Number of U.S. military officers who have retired since 1980 and taken jobs with defense contractors: 1,900
7/85Percentage of all snapshots taken in America in 1984 that were snapped at the three Disney theme parks: 3.6
8/85Rank of the grapevine among employees’ leading sources of information about their company: 1
8/85Percentage of Broadway tickets that are bought by companies and deducted as a business expense: 20
8/85Chances that one of the 120 operating U.S. nuclear reactors will melt down in the next 20 years: 45 in 100
Who say the “bad effects” of credit cards outweigh the good: 46
1/86Percentage of U.S. Steel’s revenues derived from businesses other than steel in 1981: 31
1/86Percentage of unemployed Americans who receive no unemployment benefits: 75
In South Africa: 4
1/86Number of Cocaine Anonymous meetings held weekly in Los Angeles: 75
Number that were held there three years ago: 6
1/86Percentage of Jeeps sold in 1984 that were bought by people living in urban or suburban areas: 59
10/86Number of jobs created during the Carter Administration: 10,600,000
10/86Number of brands advertised on network television in 1985: 2,713
10/86Percentage of men who say their biggest sports thrill would be to get the winning hit in the World Series: 32
11/86Height of basketball player Manute Bol: 7' 6 3/4"
11/86Percentage of Iowans whose drinking water contains traces of one or more pesticides: 27
11/86Rank of Mississippi, among all states, in the number of professional football players produced per capita: 1
12/86Amount of tax revenues Oklahoma loses every time the price of a barrel of oil drops by $1: $11,000,000
12/86Number of journalists who covered Disney World’s fifteenth anniversary: 5,000
12/86Percentage of drug-related deaths caused by prescription drugs: 70
2/86Portion of Fortune 1000 companies that employed undercover security agents in 1974: 1/10
2/86Percentage increase, since 1974, in the number of self-employed men: 12
2/86Percentage of the Philippines’ 300 government-owned corporations that are headed by Imelda Marcos: 10
3/86Percentage of families living below the poverty line in which at least one member is employed: 60
4/86Value of British government assets Prime Minister Thatcher has sold since 1979: $20,000,000,000
5/86Number of banks in the West that are owned by the Soviet Union: 6
8/86Percentage of Australian business executives who say the Japanese are untrustworthy and unethical: 89
8/86Number of U.S. savings & loans that have added the word “bank” to their name since 1984: 116
9/86Percentage of jobs created in the United States between 1978 and 1984 that pay less than $9,200 annually: 37
9/86Number of major corporations that contributed more to Senator Packwood in 1985 than they paid in taxes: 13
1/87Number of federal employees who have agreed to submit all future writing to the government for clearance: 290,000
1/87Jobs California has gained since 1981 as a result of increases in defense spending: 607,250
1/87Number of times since 1979 Britain has “refined” its method of counting the unemployed: 19
Number of those refinements that resulted in a lower unemployment rate: 18
1/87Number of newspapers sold each day, per 1,000 people, in the United States: 282
11/87Number of computer, radar, and systems maintenance technicians employed by the FAA in 1978: 11,000
11/87Amount lawyers spent advertising on TV in 1986: $47,000,000
11/87Black-market price of ten pounds of lean meat in Romania (in cartons of Kent cigarettes): 1
2/87New business activities the Soviet Union will allow individuals to engage in for profit beginning May 1: 29
Percentage of American chief executive officers who do: 65
3/87Number of U.S. corporations whose credit ratings were lowered by Moody’s in 1985: 153
3/87Average interest rate charged on bank credit cards: 17.83
Percentage of Americans who say they don’t know the interest rates charged on their credit cards: 25
3/87Number of movie tickets sold in 1986: 1,030,000,000
Number of videotapes rented in 1986: 1,040,000,000
4/87Estimated number of referees at children’s sporting events who are attacked each year by parents: 100
5/87Number of the ten largest banks in California that are owned by Japanese: 4
5/87Number of times the word “fuck” appears in Nails, the autobiography of the Mets’ Lenny Dykstra: 160
6/87Number of feet separating President Reagan from reporters as he walks from the White House to his helicopter: 50
Number of feet that separated President Carter from reporters: 2
6/87Rank of martinis among all drinks sold in bars and restaurants today: 2
7/87Portion of the pesticides exported by U.S. companies that are banned domestically: 1/3
7/87Estimated legal fees generated each month by the Pennzoil-Texaco lawsuit: $5,000,000
8/87Number of Palestinian homes in the West Bank that have been demolished or sealed by Israel since 1967: 1,500
8/87Campaign contributions made by lawyers in the Pennzoil-Texaco lawsuit to Texas judges: $387,900
8/87Takes required to film Tip O’Neill’s Miller Lite commercial: 79
9/87Amount the New York Mets spend each season for tape to wrap Gary Carter: $5,000
9/87Number of the 161 players in baseball’s Hall of Fame who wore glasses while on the field: 2
1/88Number of cheerleaders in the United States: 600,000
Estimated increase, since last year, in the amount spent on U.N. peacekeeping forces, worldwide: $81,000,000
10/88Percentage of Americans who oppose using nuclear arms in response to a non-nuclear Soviet invasion of Europe: 88
10/88Number of New York City public-school teachers who were assaulted on the job during the last school year: 400
11/88Number of special-interest tax breaks in the Republican party platform that would benefit the oil industry: 6
Number that are American: 0
Average number of U.S. presidents a child can name: 4.8
12/88Estimated portion of chlorofluorocarbons produced worldwide that is manufactured by Du Pont: 1/4
12/88Number of the 2,869 U.S. Customs Service employees screened for drugs since 1986 who tested positive: 2
12/88Average salary and benefits of workers in American industries in which the number of jobs is increasing: $22,000
Average salary and benefits of workers in American industries in which the number of jobs is decreasing: $32,000
12/88Chances that a presidential appointee has received no formal training for the job: 4 in 5
12/88Estimated percentage increase, since 1977, in the number of U.S. businesses owned by Hispanics: 55
12/88Chances that a white American man is self-employed: 1 in 7
Chances that a foreign-born Korean-American man is: 1 in 4
2/88Cost to the U.S. Treasury of business deductions for meals and entertainment in 1988: $6,400,000,000
3/88Average number of attempts a Mexican makes before successfully crossing the U.S. border and landing a job: 3
3/88Estimated number of employees on the congressional payroll who are relatives of representatives or senators: 74
4/88Percentage of Japanese cars sold in America last year that were manufactured here: 18
Percentage of cars sold in America by Chrysler last year that were manufactured overseas: 12