oddities

Figuratively Speaking for May 30, 2010

Figuratively Speaking by by John MacIntyre
by John MacIntyre
Figuratively Speaking | May 30th, 2010

Number of times more lawyers per capita in the District of Columbia than there are in any state in the country, according to the U.S. Census and Martindale-Hubbell: 13.8

Source: See http://www.averyindex.com/lawyers_per_capita.php.

Percentage of Wall Street professionals who say they have been approached at least once by headhunters since the start of 2010, according to a survey by eFinancialCareers: 72

Percentage of the respondents who indicated the number of calls was substantially or moderately higher than last year: 44

Percentage of respondents who said their current employer hasn't offered any positive incentives to deter them from moving to another firm: 82

Source: eFinancialCareers.

Percentage of parents who regret the names they have chosen for their children, according to a study by bounty.com: 20

Percentage of people who are fed up with the sheer number of other children sharing the same moniker: 19

Percentage of parents who say that much to their dismay, their child's forename has been the cause of amusement among friends and family: 15

Source: Bounty.com.

Of the number of special observances in May (ranging from National Vinegar Month to National Smile Month), rank of Root Canal Appreciation Day on the list of the most intriguing, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1

Estimated number of teeth that are saved each year by the procedure: 17 million

As a nation, estimated total annual bill for dental services: $100 billion

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Rank of Baltimore on the list of the "Most Dangerous Cities for Drivers," according to a study from insurance.com: 1

Percentage of drivers in Baltimore who claim a prior accident when receiving a car insurance comparison quote from insurance.com: 36.5

Percentage of drivers in Yuma, Ariz., who claim a prior accident when receiving a car insurance comparison quote from insurance.com, the safest city in the country: 17.2

Source: Insurance.com.

Percentage of employers who say they plan to hire seasonal workers for the summer, according to CareerBuilder's annual summer jobs forecast: 22

Percentage of employers who say they are planning to hire the same amount of summer workers as last year: 15

Percentage of companies that reported they would consider some of their seasonal recruits for permanent placement within their organizations when the summer ends: 57

Source: CareerBuilder.com.

Rank of songs from the soundtrack of the classic "Rocky" films on the list of the most motivational songs to run to for the fourth year in succession, according to a poll of marathon runners by realbuzz.com: 1

Ranks of "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor, "Keep on Running" by the Spencer Davis Group, and "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis as the most popular individual songs: 1, 2, 3

Source: Realbuzz.com.

Percentage of global business executives who view public CEO apologies as less effective than other strategies to repair tarnished company reputations, according to an 11-country survey by global public relations firm Weber Shandwick and KRC Research: 59

Percentage of business leaders who say the best steps to beginning the reputation recovery process are announcing specific actions the company will take to fix the problem: 76

Percentage who believe the company should create an early warning system: 76

Source: Weber Shandwick.

Percentage of chief financial officers who said today's accounting grads might have more success cutting their teeth at smaller companies than at public accounting firms or big corporations, according to a survey developed by Accountemps: 56

When asked what area of specialization they would recommend for newly minted graduates, percentage of CFOs who said general accounting: 60

Source: Accountemps.

Percentage of business professionals who are either very concerned or somewhat concerned that there may be a "double dip" in the economy, according to the results of a Deloitte Financial Advisory Services survey: 85

Percentage of respondents who think that some cost-cutting measures that their company implemented to weather the recession will be enforced during the upturn: 63

Percentage of respondents who believe that their company will not fully recover from the recession until after 2011: 31

Source: Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP.

Idle Thought

"Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil,' it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil." -- Sydney J. Harris, journalist

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

oddities

Figuratively Speaking for May 23, 2010

Figuratively Speaking by by John MacIntyre
by John MacIntyre
Figuratively Speaking | May 23rd, 2010

Percentage of office workers who described their workplace restrooms as "always being super-clean," according to the results of a survey conducted by Infogroup/ORC on behalf of Kimberly-Clark Professional: 38

Percentage who described visiting the restroom as "a 50-50 gamble -- sometimes clean, other times a disaster": 26

Source: Kapnek Communications.

Percentage of employees today who say that one of their pet peeves at work is having to deal with people with poor time-management skills, according to a survey byRandstad survey: 43

Percentage who say that dealing with gossip is a problem: 36

Percentage of employees who say that messiness in communal spaces is their pet peeve: 25

Percentage who are bothered by loud noises such as speaker phones, loud talkers and ring tones: 21

Source: Ipsos Public Affairs.

Percentage of Americans who say there is a God who answers prayers, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll: 83

Percentage of respondents who reject the notion that prayer is effective only if done regularly: 75

Percentage of Americans who disagree with the idea that prayer works only for those who hold certain religious beliefs: 80

Source: Gallup.

Average number of TV sets per household in the U.S., up from 2.86 sets per home in 2009, the largest year-over-year increase since 2006, according to Nielsen's Television Audience Report: 2.93

Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 55

Average number of people per home in which there's a TV (carrying on the trend of more TVs per home than people): 2.5

Source: Nielsen Analytics.

Of businesses founded in 2004 and tracked over their early years of existence, number that survived 2008, according to a Kauffman Foundation study: 2,606

Increase in the number of employees by surviving employer firms from 4.6 employees in 2004: 2.1

Percentage of firms that had revenues greater than $100,000 by 2008, compared with just 21 percent in 2004: 33

Percentage of the total firms that are high-technology businesses: 5.6

Percentage four-year survival rate of these high-tech firms: 91

Percentage four-year survival rate for non-high-tech firms: 61

Source: Kaufman Foundation.

Ranks of financial rewards and incentives, training and development opportunities, and brand affiliation as the key tools retail executives cite to motivate and retain top talent, according to the Deloitte/National Retail Federation Survey: 1, 2, 3

Source: Deloitte.

Percentage of Americans over age 65 who will need long-term care at home or through adult day health care, or care in an assisted living facility or nursing home, according to Genworth's 2010 Cost of Care Surve: 66

Median annual rate for a private nursing home room in 2005: $60,225

Median annual rate today: $75,190.

Source: Genworth Financial.

Percentage of Americans who have a negative reaction to the word "militia," according to the findings of a national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: 65

Percentage of respondents who have a negative reaction to the word "socialism," though 29 percent react positively: 59

Percentage who have a negative reaction to the word "capitalism," though 52 percent react positively: 37

Percentage who have a negative reaction to the words "family values": 9 (89 percent react positively)

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Percentage of Americans who do not agree that illegal aliens are entitled to the same rights and basic freedoms as U.S. citizens, according to a Zogby Interactive poll: 79

Percentage of Americans who want major reform in immigration policy: 72

Percentage who favor guest-worker programs: 71

Source: Zogby International.

Year (by presidential proclamation) that May was selected to recognize one of the nation's fastest-growing population groups -- those of Asian and Pacific American heritage: 1978

Today, number of people in the U.S. who are of Asian heritage, about 5 percent of the total population: 15.5 million

Percentage of the population of Hawaii that is Asian: 54

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Percentage of active employment-based individual account retirement-plan assets that are owned by families with white, non-Hispanic heads of households, according to a study released by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI): 85.1

Percentage of these active employment-based retirement assets that are owned by families in the top 10 percent of net worth: 50

Percentage of all financial assets that are held by these families: 50

Source: EBRI.

Idle Thought

"One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole." -- Mohandas Gandhi

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

oddities

Figuratively Speaking for May 16, 2010

Figuratively Speaking by by John MacIntyre
by John MacIntyre
Figuratively Speaking | May 16th, 2010

Percentage of all working adults who have people that they would consider friends at work, according to a Randstad survey: 95

Percentage of respondents who say that having friends at work makes their job more enjoyable: 67

Percentage who say it makes their job more satisfying: 55

Source: Randstad.

Increase over the past 20 years in average annual Social Security benefit payments to seniors who retired in 1990, according to an analysis conducted by The Senior Citizens League: $4,967

During the same time period, total raise in annual pay for members of Congress -- 1,458 percent more than seniors: $77,400

Number of times more quickly that congressional pay grows than Social Security checks: 15

Source: Senior Citizens League.

Number of flight cancellations caused by the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll: 100,000

Estimated cost to the airline industry: $1.7 billion

Percentage of Americans who were affected: 14

Source: Gallup.

Despite rooms filled with all manner of electronic distractions, approximate percentage of the nation's children age 7 or younger who most often opt for a bedtime story before turning in for the night, according to a survey commissioned by SleepBetter.org: 50

Percentage of Americans who say that "Goodnight Moon," Margaret Wise Brown's perennial classic first published in 1947, is America's favorite bedtime story: 23

Percentage of parents of children age 7 or younger who say they have made up stories, and that these stories are the overwhelming choice of their children: 74

Source: SleepBetter.org.

Percentage of global executives who said they are willing to relocate to a different region, state or country, according to Korn/Ferry's Executive Quiz: 82

Percentage of respondents who said that career acceleration is the primary reason to move: 78

Percentage who also chose "job title and promotion" or "salary" as the top motivator: 20

Source: Korn/Ferry International.

Current average personal debt of an individual in the U.K. (excluding mortgages), according to research carried out by the Post Office: 9,731.51 pounds

Percentage of consumers who admitted to hiding their debt from their partner: 20

Percentage of those with hidden debt who have never been open about the true extent of their debt: 78

Of the 22 percent who were open, percentage who were discovered rather than chose to come clean: 60

Source: Baines and Ernst.

Percentage of Americans who said they have shared a negative product or service experience with others on Facebook, YouTube or another social networking site, according to a survey sponsored by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies: 20

Percentage of respondents who said their company had no policy for talking about the company on social networking sites: 64

Of the 36 percentage who said their company had a policy, percentage who said they were encouraged to talk about the company: 18

Source: Chubb Group.

In 1990, percentage of all U.S. babies who were born to teen mothers, according to a report by the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau: 13

In the same year, percentage of babies who were born to women age 35 and older: 9

In 2008, percentage of births that were to teens: 10

Percentage that were to women age 35 and older: 14

Source: Pewsocialtrends.org.

Percentage of U.S. adults who have two or more computers: 57.7

Percentage of U.S. adults who purchased a laptop computer in the past 12 months: 12.9

Source: Nielsen Analytics.

Year that a radical new building began to take shape in Chicago -- America's first skyscraper, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1884

Number of stories high that designer William Jenney was able to build the structure using a metal frame for support, with walls hung like curtains on the frame (previously, walls supported buildings, limiting the height that could be safely reached): 10

Amount of money that the U.S. construction industry spends erecting nonresidential buildings every year: $263 billion

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Idle Thought

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else." -- Charles Dickens

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

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