I always find that statistics are hard to swallow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable. [Mrs. Robert Taft]
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. [Aaron Levenstein]
So, be discerning with these rather interesting numbers, which come from "Harper's Index," a column I always turn to first when the magazine arrives in the mail.
✔ Average time spent watching TV by Americans between the ages of 43 and 61: 19 hours/week.
✔ Average time spent watching TV by Americans between the ages of 26 and 42: 15 hours/week.
✔ Average time spent watching TV by Americans between the ages of 14 and 25: 11 hours/week.
✔ Number of people who showed up at a farm near Denver which had advertised its fields would be open for one day for free picking: 40,000.
[Source: “Harper’s Index” in Harper’s Magazine (March 2009) p. 13.]
✔Total amount that Canadian banks have required to be bailed out during the 2008-2009 financial crisis: $0.
✔ Percentage of American mortgages in foreclosure or in excess of 90 days delinquent: 7.2%
✔ Percentage of Canadian mortgages in foreclosure or in excess of 90 days delinquent: 0.4%
✔ Percentage change between winter 2008 and winter 2009 in the amount of delinquent U.S. credit-card debt: +47.
✔ Percentage of existing blogs that have not been updated for four months: 94%.
✔ Amount of African farmland purchased by Chinese investors since 2006: 10,851 square miles.
[Source: “Harper’s Index” in Harper’s Magazine (August 2009) p. 11.]
✔ Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large U.S. health-insurance companies: +87%
✔ Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%
✔ Chance that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 70%
✔ Percentage of total U.S. home values that Americans owned as equity in 1945: 84%
✔ Percentage of total U.S. home values that Americans own as equity in 2009: 41%
[Source: “Harper’s Index” in Harper’s Magazine (September 2009) p. 13.]