Despite the recession, Americans started 530,000 businesses a month in 2008.

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For each $100,000 in unexpected gains at the stockmarket in the 1990s, the typical shareholder retired seven months earlier.

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In the US, lifetime gross earnings of male graduates are, on average, nearly $370,000 higher than those of non-graduates.

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European car factories are capable of churning out 4 million more cars than the market can take, even in a good year like 2007.

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400 million Indians still do not have electricity.

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On average, shares in China trade at 31 times trailing earnings, double the global average.

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Second Life is currently populated by no more than 84,000 avatars at a time.

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Netflix shipped its 2 billionth DVD in April 2009.

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The finance industry's share of corporate profits in America peaked at an incredible 41% in 2007.

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The total medical costs of obesity surpass $200 billion a year in America, which is higher than the bill for smoking.

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India slashed tarfiffs on imports from an average of 90% in 1991 to 30% in 1997.

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Cars contribute around 10% of the man-made greenhouse gases that are responsible for climate change.

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Currently immigrants account for about 10% of the population of most west European countries, and up to 30% in some of Europe’s great cities.

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The average share in China has changed hands 3 times so far this year.

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Online advertising typically accounts for 10-15% of a newspaper's revenues.

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The population of UK grew by 408,000 in 2008 - the biggest increase since 1962.

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Total tennis sponsorship spending in 2009 is expected to be $ 581 million, up 1.3 % from the year before.

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776 million adults around the world are illiterate.

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In late 1998, Yahoo had the same market capitilisation with 637 employees as Boeing with 230,000.

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Ford's mega-flop clunker Edsel sold only 68,045 in 1958, its first year, and 47,496 in its second before it was axed.

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IBM sacked 122,000 people, a quarter of its workforce, between 1990 and 1995.

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In China, state banks and others issued 5.5 trillion yuan ($800 billion) of new loans in the first quarter of 2009 - more than in the whole of 2008.

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The gross profit from online betting in Europe is thought to be about €3.5 billion ($5 billion) a year.

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In early 2000, Cisco's market capitilisation peaked at $550 billion, making it - briefly - the world's most valuable company.

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In 2008, while US consumers bought more than a billion individual digital tracks online, they bought only 65 million digital albums.

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In 2008, the average market value of Russia's 314 listed firms was $4.2 billion, the highest of any country.

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More than 200 million people - about 1/5th of all internet users - have Facebook accounts.

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Verizon is America's biggest mobile operator with 87.7 million subscribers.

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Agriculture accounts for 18% of India's GDP - down from 30% in 1990. It still employs 60% of Indians.

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The English Premier League has annual revenues of €2.4 billion.

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In Germany, private labels account for almost 40% of sales.

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In the 1970s, Readers' Digest Magazine sold as many as 18m copies a month.

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There are roughly 1.5 million home-schooled students in America, a number that has doubled in a decade.

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At present just under 11% of the world's 6.9 billion people are over 60.

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In 2008, India had 4,921 listed companies, second only to the US which had 5,603.

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Some 25% of Americans have no landlines and rely only on mobile phones.

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Every month, users share 4 billion pieces of information and upload 850 million photos along with 8 million videos on Facebook.

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China accounts for 48% of Lenovo's worldwide sales.

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About 20 percent of the world’s power is hydroelectric.

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About one-third of Americans are obese, up from 15% in 1980.

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$383 billion worth patented drugs will be sold around the world this year.

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Britons sent 80 billion texts in 2008.

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