Rep. Index Nov. 2010

Smart decisions are based on more than government statistics, agency reports, news releases, interest rates and stock quotes. We've selected a few fascinating statistics here that illuminate the markets, the world of financial services and big business.

1. Estimated number of executives Goldman Sachs will name as partners in 2010: 100

2. Estimated number of Goldman partners who may be stripped of their partnerships in an intricate up-and-out process: 60

3. Average tenure of a Goldman Sachs partner: 8 years

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

5. Number of pages in the bill that created the Federal Trade Commission: 8

6. Average 2009 CEO salary for the S&P 500: $8.5 million

7. Average salary of the CEOs of the 50 firms among the S&P 500 that have terminated the most employees since the onset of the economic crisis: $12 million

8. Net change in the amount of money kept in U.S. stock-based mutual funds since 2007: -$249.4 billion

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

10. Share of U.S. home purchases by foreign buyers in Florida, California, and Arizona, respectively: 23%, 13%, 7%

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

12. Number whose pension plans are funded in 2010: 3

13. Change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since Dec. 11, 1987, the release of Oliver Stone's original “Wall Street,” and the recent release of its sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”: +8,727 points

14. Number of frequent flier program members resulting from the merger of United Airlines' MileagePlus and Continental Airlines' OnePass programs: 91 million

15. Correlation in 2010 between the average major league baseball teams' winning percentage and the total player payroll: 0.14

16. Correlation in 1998: 0.71

17. Change in average income, since the recession began in 2007, for people 45-54 years old: -5.2%

18. Change for people aged 65 and older: +7.1%

19. Average 2009 salary for the job category “financial managers”: $101,190

20. Percent gain in salary for this category, from 2000 to 2009, the highest among the top 100 job categories in the U.S.: 51%

21. Gifts U.S. taxpayers donated to the government in 2009 to help retire the national debt, the largest sum since the government began accepting such gifts in 1961: $3.1 million

22. Factor by which men who are completely dependent on their female partner's income are more likely to be unfaithful than men who contribute equal amounts of money to the relationship: 5

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

24. Number it sold in China for the same period: 1.21 million

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

26. Number of years since Paul Simon sang, “Mama Don't Take My Kodachrome Away” that Kodak manufactured the last roll: 37

Sources: 1-3 NY Times; 4-5 U.S. Senate Historical Office; 6-7 Institute for Policy Studies; 8 Investment Company Institute; 9 Standard & Poor's; 10 National Association of Realtors; 11-12 Pew Center on the States, Consumer Reports; 13 Wall Street Journal; 14 United Airlines, Continental Airlines; 15-16 Baseball Reference.com; 17-18 Census Bureau, USA Today; 19-20 Bureau of Labor Statistics; 21 Bureau of the Public Debt; 22 Prof. Christin L. Munch, Cornell University; 23-24 Chicago Tribune; 25 Fidelity; 26 Kodak.