Harper's, Staff
Published August 31, 2005
60:Increase in the total value of U.S. residential property since 2000, expressed as a percentage of GDP.
59:Increase in the value of all U.S. stocks between 1995 and 2000, as a percentage of GDP.
2 in 5:Chances that a U.S. job created since 2001 has been in a housing-related field.
14:Number of consecutive years that the value of housing in Japan has dropped since its housing bubble burst.
13:Number of years that the world's tallest hotel has stood uncompleted in North Korea.
6:Number of consecutive years that China has jailed more reporters than any other nation.
25:Percentage of Asian-Americans whose primary source of news is not in English.
40:Percentage of Arab-Americans for whom this is true.
1:Rank of "time to buy" in the futures markets, among the first thoughts Brit Hume said he had after the London bombings.
19:Number of anti-globalization protesters who were tortured last year by Mexican officials.
$1,100,000,000:Total paid by U.S. catastrophe insurers since 1984 for claims due to "civil disorders."
$414,000,000,000:Total annual spending controlled by functionally illiterate U.S. consumers.
1 in 5:Chance that a teacher in a U.S. public school is a man.
79:Average percentage of students in New York state's majority-white school districts who graduate in four years.
40:Average percentage who do so in districts where a majority of students are black or Latino.
6:Minimum number of American universities with their own student-run erotic magazine.
$25,000:Stipend that a CIA scholarship program gives annually to undisclosed undergraduates for overseas "fieldwork."
23:1:Ratio of the world's reconstruction aid given to postwar Kosovo, per capita, to that given postwar Afghanistan.
24:1:Ratio of the number of peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, per capita, to that in Afghanistan.
11:Number of times that the United Nations has extended its peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone.
$4,000,000:Amount the United States spent last year on mosquito nets to fight malaria in Africa.
$7,600,000:Amount it paid a consultancy to conduct "social marketing" of mosquito nets.
1956:Year in which perfluorochemicals, used in Teflon and other nonstick products, were introduced.
96:Percentage of U.S. children who now have one of these non-biodegradable chemicals in their bloodstreams.
$868,000,000:Amount that pharmaceutical companies spent on research and development in 1997 per new drug they launched.
$1,430,000,000:Amount last year.
$114,000,000:Amount allocated for investigating health-care fraud in 2003 for which the FBI cannot account.
500:Minimum number of prescription drugs currently under investigation for Medicaid price-gouging or marketing fraud.
20,735:Percentage markup that Abbott Laboratories charged in 2001 on solutions of sodium chloride, i.e., salt water.
2010:Year by which Brazil's government will have switched its computers entirely to open-source software.
$48,000,000:Amount they expect the switch will save each year.
15:Number of Danish graduate students who last December released a copyright-free recipe for an "open-source beer."
133,000:Number of times the Web site has been accessed so far.
$30:Average amount an Ohio man paid children to berate him for being obese, until his arrest in April.
6:Number of chickens trained by European scientists to choose between photos of human faces by pecking.
49 in 50:Chances that college students select as "most desirable" the same face chosen by the chickens.
0:Numeral whose underlying concept has been partially understood by a parrot, according to scientists.
This article originally appeared in Harper's Magazine.
SOURCES: Federal Reserve Board (Washington)/Bureau of Economic Analysis (Washington); U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission/Bureau of Economic Analysis (Washington; Economy.com (West Chester, Pa.); Japan Real Estate Institute (Tokyo); Emporis (Essen, Germany); Reporters Without Borders (New York); New California Media (San Francisco); Fox News Channel (New York); Comision Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (La Magdalena Contreras, Mexico); Insurance Information Institute (New York); Madhu Viswanathan, University of Illinois (Champaign); National Education Association (Washington); The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.); Harper's research; Central Intelligence Agency (Washington); United Nations Development Program (New York)/Ministry of Finance (Kabul); North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Brussels); United Nations (New York)U.S. Agency for International Development (Washington); Environmental Working Group (Washington); Joseph A. DiMasi, Tufts University (Boston); U.S. Government Accountability Office; U.S. Department of Justice; Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia da Informacao (Brasilia); Superflex (Copenhagen); Springfield Police Department (Springfield, Ohio); Stefano Ghirlanda, Universita di Bologna (Bologna); Irene Pepperberg, Brandeis University (Waltham, Mass.).
