Monday, January 05, 2009

Stats from New York Magazine

Every week, New York Magazine has a little column called the Recession Index, subtitled "A numeric summary of our troubled times." Here's a few tidbits that I found interesting:

Cars and light trucks sold in the New York metro area in September and October
2007: 81,800
2008: 66,736

Unlimited-run Broadway shows closing during December and January:
2007-8: 3
2008-9: 7

College-educated New Yorkers receiving unemployment insurance:
Oct. 2007: 13,381
Oct. 2008: 20,072

Prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications filled at city pharmacies in September and October:
2007: 302,160
2008: 317,268

Morgan Stanley's annual profit, in billions:
2007: $3.14
2008: $1.59

Average annual pay for a Goldman Sachs employee:
2007: $661,490
2008: $363,654

Income to the MTA from a tax on real-estate transactions, in millions:
Dec. 2007: $103
Dec. 2008: $37


Scary stuff!

3 comments:

frugal zeitgeist said...

Ew. It gets scarier every day.

Anonymous said...

This party is just getting started... and we haven't seen anything yet. The worst is yet to come, despite the government's attempts to prop up the system.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the system's imperfect. But i'll bet you a lot of the purchases of the past (including cars and theatre tickets) were completely unnecessary... and today people are actually imagining a life where they live within their means (scary! thus the anti-anxiety pills!) shaki