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Weekly UpdatesInformation begins with facts, which can be assembled to identify trends. Put it all together to derive knowledge. Presenting Chief Executive's INfact.
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(1.) Total value of the 392 retention bonuses paid to employees of AIG Financial Products between December and March 15 | $218 million
(2.) Median bonus | $248,750
(3.) Number of employees receiving less than $200,000 | 19
(4.) Total value of employee bonuses awarded by Wal-Mart in 2008 | $933.6 million
(5.) Average bonus | $933.60
(6.) Cash award paid by American Express to some consumers as an inducement to close their credit card accounts | $300
(7.) Number of days a week that the Detroit Free Press will Offer home delivery of the newspaper starting March 30 | 14
(8.) Average time, in months, after the beginning of severe economic downturn that economic growth resumes | 24
(9.) Average time, in months, that unemployment recovers to pre-downturn levels | 60
(10.) Number of months it would take for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to reach its October 2, 2007, high of 14, 165, assuming an average annualized gain of 6 percent | 120
(11.) Estimated amount by which the U.S. GDP increases for each additional dollar of infrastructure spending | $1.59
(12.) Amount of increase for each additional dollar of food stamps | $1.73
(13.) For each additional dollar of tax cuts | $1.03
(14.) Number of densely packed PowerPoint slides that G.E. Capital president Michael A. Neal went through in a five-hour presentation in March 2009 | 170
(15.) Amount U.S. drug companies spent on R&D in 2008 | $128 billion
(16.) Number of new drugs approved by the FDA in 2008 | 8
(17.) Purchase price that the celebrated but bankrupt West Virginia Greenbriar Resort was willing to be acquired for by Marriott International | $130 million
(18.) Chance of a tax audit for taxpayers with incomes above $1 million in fiscal 2008 | 1 in 18
(19.) Audit rate in 2007 | 1 in 16
(20.) Average amount of additional taxes demanded by the IRS after a face-to-face audit | $198,000
(21.) Change in real estate prices in 20 metropolitan areas in January 2009 compared to a year earlier, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index | - 19%
(22.) Number of cities that showed record annual rates of decline | 13
(23.) Number that showed month-to-month improvements | 0
(24.) Rank of U.S. on the Top Ten list of "innovation-friendly" nations | 7
(25.) Rank of Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland, respectively | 1, 2, 3
(26.) Percentage change between 1898 and 1996 in the number of democracies worldwide | +71
(27.) Percentage change since 1996 | 0
(28.) Estimated number of people in China who can read and write English | 300 million
(29.) Number in the U.S. | 252 million
(30.) Level of organizational confidence reported by employees in India, the country with the highest level of confidence | 82%
(31.) Level in Japan, the lowest | 48%
(32.) Level in the U.S. | 74%
(33.) Number of U.S. patents issued in 2008 | 157,774
(34.) Number of patent applications pending | 1.2 million
(35.) Average number of months the Patent Office requires to move a patent from filing to approval/termination | 32.2
(36.) Percentage of worldwide patents awarded to U.S. businesses in 2008 | 49%
(37.) Time, in months, that the CEO office at Sears has been empty | 14
(38.) Percent of the annual $698 million budget of the New York City Department of Transportation represented by fines collected in 2008 from parking violators | 89
(39.) Estimated percentage of North American businesses that will eliminate desk telephones--up from 4% in 2008--by 2012 | 23%
(40.) Factor by which workers in open-plan offices are more likely to have high blood pressure that those in walled offices| 49%
(41.) Minimum number of Wall Streets, including variants such as Wall Street Road, in America | 955
(42.) Number of customers who follow JetBlue Airlines' twitter feed | 203,935
Sources: 1-5 Hartford Courant, Wall Street Journal; 6 USA TODAY; 7 Detroit Free Press; 8-10 Bloomberg, BusinessWeek: 11-13 Moody's Analytics; 14 New York Times; 15-16 Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America; 17 New York Times; 18-20 Internal Revenue Service; 21-23 Standard & Poor's; 24-25 Boston Consulting Group; 26-27 Freedom House, NY; 28-29 Wired, Wikipedia; 30-32 Kenexa, Wayne, PA; 33-36 U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, IFI Analytics; 37 New York Times: 38 Office of the Mayor, NYC; 39 Gartner Group; 40 Vinesh Oommen, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane; 41 ESRI Street Data; 42 Advertising Age
John Kador can be contacted at jkador@jkador.com
Complied by JOHN KADOR
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