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Weekly Updates1. Factor by which the market capitalization of Harley-Davidson ($2.7 billion) exceeded that of General Motors ($1.3 billion) on February 17, 2009 | 2
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2. Net income that ExxonMobile reported for Q4 in 2008, a 33% decline over 2007, but still more than any other company worldwide | $7.82 billion
3. Change in compensation of Wells Fargo & Co.'s chief executive John Stumpf for 2008 compared to 2007, despite his base salary increasing 17 percent in 2008 to $878,920 from $749,615 in 2007 | -21%
4. U.S. share of the world economy in 2000 | 31 %
5. In 2008 | 25%
6. Total assets of U.S public companies that declared bankruptcy in 2008 | $1.159 trillion
7. Total if the assets of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual are excluded | $160 billion
8. Estimated change in the economy of Washington, D.C., from mid-2008 to mid-2010 | +2.5%
9. For New York City | -4.2%
10. With a -53% year-over-year decrease in earnings per share, the only country where corporate profits have declined more than in the U.S. where the S&P 500 was down by 50% | Japan (-53%)
11. Change in Germany's DAX index in the same period | -30%
12. Change in China's Hang Seng index | +4%
13. Estimated cumulative stock losses for American households since the end of 2007, with the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index down by nearly 50% | $10.2 trillion
14. Change in the real net worth of American households in 2008 | -13%
15. Residential home value expressed as a percentage of all household assets for U.S. taxpayers in the bottom 20 percent of income | 47.1 %
16. For taxpayers in the top 10 percent | 19.8%
17. Increase, since 2007, in the number of months that Hertz keeps in service the average rental car in its fleet | 4
18. Number of months since record keeping began in 1947 that US. Consumer prices declined as steeply as in November 2008 | 0
19. Last year in which total world trade decreased, before it did so in 2008 | 1982
20. Minimum per-capita debt that Iceland owes to foreign depositors as a result of its banking collapse | $19,100
21. Per-capita reparations required of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, a punishing debt said to be a cause of World War II | $2,400
22. Change in revenues for all Las Vegas casinos in January 2008 compared to a year earlier | -16%
23. Ratio of visitors to Las Vegas (36.7 million in 2007) to residents (558,000) | 65:1
24. Percentage of visitors who say they come to Las Vegas to gamble | 5
25. Percentage that actually gambles | 87
26. Estimated decrease in the number of business travelers to Las Vegas, exacerbated by political scoldings for companies holding meetings during the recession, in 2009 compared to 2008 | 300,000
27. Number of new hotel rooms Las Vegas developers will bring on line 2009 | 13,000
28. Valuation of a human life as determined by the EPA's 2008 Value of a Statistical Life calculation | $6.8 million
29. Rank of Facebook, if it were a nation, with 200 million registered users, among the most populous country in the world | 5th
30. Number of new users Facebook registers per day | 300,000
31. Percentage of Americans who think their lives serve "an important purpose" | 94
32. Number of days by which the median age of European Union citizens increases each week | 2
33. Estimated yearly value of the California cannabis market | $40 billion
34. Percent of California's budget shortfall of $16 billion that can be met by legalizing marijuana and taxing it | 13%
35. Percent of U.S. federal revenue in 1936 represented by taxing the alcohol legalized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt three years earlier | 13%
36. Of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Average, the fraction that has announced job cuts since October, 20 | one-fourth
37. Of the 30, the only two companies that saw their share prices go up in 2008 | McDonalds, Wal-Mart
38. Cost of "Smash-Me Bernie" doll introduced at the American International Toy Fair, including gold "commemorative" hammer for the purpose of pulverizing Bernie Madoff in effigy | $100
Sources: 1 Bloomberg; Capital IQ; 3 Wells Fargo, Associated Press; 4-5 World Bank, N.Y. Times; 6-7 BankruptcyData.com; 8-9 Moody's Economy.com; 10-12 Bloomberg; 13 Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek; 14-16 Federal Reserve; 17 Hertz; 18 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 19 The World Bank; 20 International Monetary Fund; 21 Prof. Stephen Schuker, University of Virginia; 22-27 Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority; 28 Environmental Protection Agency; 29-30 lnsideFacebook.com; 31 Gallup Poll; 32 United Nations Population Division; 33 United Nations; 34-35 International Herald Tribune; 36 N. Y. Times; 37 Newsweek; 38 N. Y. Times
John Kador can be contacted at jkador@jkador.com
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