ChiefExecutive.net

INfact

December 7 2007 by John Kador

Information begins with facts, which can be assembled to identify trends. Put it all together to derive knowledge.

1. Percent growth, in the past 12 months, of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar | +19.6

2. Number of previously unknown airplane wrecks discovered by Nevada Civil Air Patrol in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett | 6

3. Price of a venti mocha at the new Starbucks outlet near Moscow, the chain’s first store in Russia | $8.98

4. Price in New York City | $4.71

5. Annualized rate of return since 1985 of Citicorp’s “plutonomy basket” of stocks of luxury brands (Bulgari, Hermes, etc.) | 17.8 percent

6. Percentage of Japanese women in their 20s who own an item made by Louis Vuitton | 94.3

7. Since 1976, the factor by which the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well (CLEW) Index has outpaced the Consumer Price Index (CPI) | 97 percent

8. Percentage change from 1978 to 2006 in the cost of one year of private college tuition, adjusted for inflation | 143

9. Percentage change in same period of the costs of domestic air travel, per mile | -50

10. Average age of the 100 U.S. senators in the 110^th Congress | 60.4 years

11. Rank of this cohort of senators as oldest in U.S. history | first

12. Difference in the number of days in session between the 110th Congress and the 100th Congress | 150

13. Average age of the 28 members of the China Politburo | 66 years

14. Commonly accepted supermarket industry assumption of the number of “extreme cherry pickers”-grocery shoppers who buy only items on sale-as a percentage of total supermarket shoppers | 10 to 15 percent

15. Actual number of such dedicated coupon clippers and bargain hunters | 1.2 percent

16. Median invested savings of retired white Americans | $210,000

17. For African-Americans | $73,000

18. Percent of African-American families who support friends or relatives living outside the home | 27

19. Percent of white American families who do | 12

20. Price per month that Japanese consumers pay for one megabyte per second of Internet service | 27 cents

21. Factor by which American Internet consumers pay more for equivalent service | 12

22. Number of Fortune 1000 corporations that earned the highest score on the 2006 Corporate Equity Index | 195

23. Number of businesses that received the top rating in 2002 | 13

24. Companies receiving top marks in 2006 | FedEx, Yahoo, MasterCard

25. Expected height, in feet, of the Burj Dubai, a corporate and residential complex under construction in the United Arab Emirates | 2,625

26. Number of years it took British adventurer Jason Lewis, 40, to circumnavigate the globe using only human-powered transportation | 13.5

27. Number of years by which this exceeded his goal | 10

28. Number of guns in the U.S. for every 100 citizens | 90

29. Number of guns per capita in India, the country with the second largest civilian gun arsenal | 4

30. Frequent-flyer miles awarded by U.S. airlines in the past 25 years | 19 trillion

31. Miles that passengers have yet to redeem | 14 trillion

32. Budget for the University of Florida‘s athletic department for the 2006-07 academic year | $69 million

33. Budget for the University of Florida‘s English department | $7.3 million

34. Ratio of U.S. adults who did not read a single book in the past year | One-fourth

35. Amount the average U.S. worker contributes to the nation’s GDP | $63,885

36. Rank of U.S. workers in productivity relative to the workers of other nations | First

37. Average age of motorcyclists in the U.S. | 41; In 1990 | 32

John Kador can be contacted at jkador@jkador.com