Financial Factoids

Financial Factoids

 I often find these items fascinating, either because I’m weird, or perhaps because they can tell a story when you really think about what the facts represent.  Anyway, here are several.

Retail price, per gallon, of black ink in the average printer ink cartridge:   $2,701.52   (source: cockeyed.com)

Amount American companies lost to workplace fraud in 2008:  $994 billion   (source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Date the first woman acquired a seat on the New York Stock Exchange:   January 13, 1927   (source: NYSE)

Share of American eighth graders who agreed “a lot” with the statement, “I usually do well in mathematics.”   40%

Percent who qualified as advanced:   7%

Shanghai eighth graders who indicated similar high self-esteem in math:   18%

Percent who qualified as advanced:   44%    (source of the last four items: Brookings Institution)

How about some look at who is investing…..

Percent of white Americans who own stocks, bonds, or mutual funds:   49%

Of black Americans:   25%

Of Hispanic Americans:   16%    (source of the last three items: Kaiser Family Foundation)

What’s the best way to do business….

Percent of Americans in 2009 who believed the free market is the “best system on which to base the future of the world”:   74%

Percent of Americans who believe so today:   59%

Percent of Chinese who do:   67%    (source of the last 3 items: GlobeScan Incorporated,Toronto)

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Financial Factoids

More Financial Factoids

Here are some new financial factoids.  I like these kinds of things because lots of times they’re just fun.  And I think that when you take them in their totality, there are often some very interesting points of view that come to the surface and tell us about ourselves.

The expected amount of money that the average worker is expected to amass in a 401(k) retirement plan given ideal conditions over 30 years:  $400,000  (source: New School for Social Research, Teresa Ghiladrucci )

Actual average due to 401(k) “leaks” – withdrawals, borrowing, etc. – over 30 years:  $60,000   (source: New School for Social Research, Teresa Ghiladrucci  )

Proportion of homeowners with mortgages in excess of $1 million that are “seriously delinquent”:   1 out of 7   (source: Freddie Mac )

Number of barrels of whisky and scotch transferred by Diageo, maker of Johnnie Walker blended whisky and Talisker, single malt scotch, to its pension fund to help cure a pension deficiet:  2.5 million barrels   (source: Wall Street Journal )

Rank of Facebook, with 500 million “citizens”, among the most populous nations in the world:  third   (source: Facebook )

Americans of the age of 65 who have been the victims of a financial scam, at a cost of $2.6 billion per year:  1 out of 5    (source: Investor Protection Trust, Washington D.C., MetLife )

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Some Interesting Financial Factoids

Some Interesting Financial Factoids

These are courtesy of Registered Rep. magazine.  The source of the data is listed below.

1.  Share of all revenue earned by S&P 500 companies in 2009 that came from outside the U.S.:   47%

Who says this isn’t a global economy.

2.  Number of cars GM sold in the U.S. in the first half of 2010:   1.08 million

3.  Number of cars GM sold in China in the first half of 2010:   1.21 million

Ditto

4.  Number of states whose pension plans were fully funded in 2000:   26

5.  Number of states whose pension plans were fully funded in 2010:   3

 This could potentially be a major problem.

6.  Total number of pages in the financial reform bill enacted by Congress in July:   848

7.  Number of pages in the bill that created the Federal Trade Commission (in 1914):   8

Are things really that much more complicated now?

8.  Portion of 401(k) accounts with loans outstanding in the second quarter of this year, a 10 year high:   22%

 1 Standard & Poor’s

2-3 Chicago Tribune

4-5 Pew Center on the States, Consumer Reports

6-7 U.S. Senate Historical Office

8 Fidelity

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