INfact.

CEOs are awash in numbers from morning till night. Most of those numbers come to CEOs filtered and organized with a PowerPoint behind every numeral. But decision-makers also benefit from data disconnected from any agenda. The Chief Executive INfact collects illuminating facts and figures that underscore the world's interconnectedness, swift pace and wonder.

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1. Increased odds that a company's CEO would be fired within six months after analyst downgraded their recommendations of the company by one notch | 50 percent

2. Chance that a CEO who left one of the top 2,500 global companies in 1995 was forced out | 1 in 8

3. Chance in 2006 | 1 in 3

4. The U.S. president in office the last time--before September 20, 2007--when the Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. dollar | Gerald Ford

5. Ratio of the number of Starbucks outlets to McDonald's restaurants in Manhattan | 3 to 2

6. Rise in average value, adjusted for inflation, of America's largest 500 companies from 1980 to 2004 | Sixfold

7. Rise in average CEO pay in those companies for the same period | Sixfold

8. Phrase General Electric currently uses to refer to low performing employees, formerly called "bottom 10s" | Less effective

9. Length of time average investors held on to a share of stock in 1990 | 25 months

10. In 2004 | 5.2 months

11. Assuming no tinkering of earnings, the number of companies expected to report increases in earnings per share for 20 consecutive quarters | 46

12. Number of companies actually reporting such strings of earnings growth | 587

13. Effect contributed by chief marketing officers of 167 companies on financial performance | Zero

14. Percent of American households that own three or more cars | 32

15. Estimate of extra income tax Americans would pay if employer-provided health care benefits were considered taxable income | $126 billion

16. Factor by which the average size of the American master bathroom is bigger than in 1950 | 2

17. Rank of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago in terms of most gridlocked cities for traffic in the U.S. | 1, 2, 3

18. Annual delay, gasoline wasted and extra cost for the average driver in Chicago | 46 hours, 32 gallons, $906

19. When given the choice between kissing their mother, father-in-law or their car, percent of people who would pucker up and head for the garage | 38

20. From 1956 to 2006, the reduction in the number of weeks of work needed to pay for each 100 square feet of home purchased | 2 weeks

21. Aggregate value of adjustable-rate home mortgages that will reset through the end of 2008 | $571 billion

22. Total value of incremental interest payments represented by resets | $42 billion

23. Increase since 2003 in the percent of time a typical Internet user spends on Google or other search engines | 1,066 percent

24. Drop in Dow Jones Industrial Average on Black Monday, October 19, 1987 | 22.6 percent

25. Years required for the Dow Jones Average to climb back to the all-time high it reached shortly before the crash | 2

26. Factor by which medical costs and workers' compensation claims for obese employees surpassed those for non-obese employees | 2

27. Aggregate annual salary of Steve Jobs (Apple), Jeff Katzenberg (DreamWorks), Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Rich Kinder (Kinder Morgan), Jerrold Perenchio (Univision) and Terry Semel (Yahoo) | $7 per year

28. Average 2006 total return to investors for these six companies | 3.2 percent

29. The average length of time of a presidential candidate's sound bite on TV newscasts in 1968 | 42 seconds

30. In 2007 | 8 seconds

31. Average wage paid by auto parts maker Delphi for unionized workers in 2006, fully loaded with benefits | $65 per hour

32. Wage paid by Delphi's China plant for same work | $3 per hour

33. Value the average American family saved in 2006 by prices lowered by Wal-Mart | $600

34. Worst-case loss suggested by Bear Stearns' sales pitch for two hedge funds | 10 percent

35. Actual loss incurred by investors | 100 percent

36. Rank of Deloitte & Touche, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, and the Central Intelligence Agency among the best employers for entry-level workers | 1, 2, 50

37. Head of cattle that Fidelity Investments keeps on a portion of its corporate campus near Fort Worth | 25

38. With Alcoa's relocation to New York, reduction in number of Fortune 500 companies located in Pittsburgh since 1965 | 6

39. Increase in U.S. book sales from 2005 to 2006 | 6.5 percent

40. Percent of increase not attributed to sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | 0.05 percent

41. Total shares under management of "socially responsible investment funds" expressed as percent of mutual fund shares outstanding | 2

Sources: 1 Wargareth Wiersema, Rice University, and Mark Washburn, University of California at Berkeley; 2-3 Booz Allen Hamilton; 4-5 Chief Executive research (Starbucks 174, McDonald's 61); 6-7 Xavier Gabaix and Augustin Landler, "MIT Working Paper: Why Has CEO Pay Increased so Much?"; 8 salary.com; 9-10 NYSE Statistic Exchange; 11-12 James N. Myers and Linda A. Myers, "Earnings Momentum and Earnings Management." the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, spring 2007; 13 The Journal of Marketing, "Chief Marketing Officers: A Study of their Presence in Firms' Top Management Teams," slated for the January 2008 issue; 14 Department of Transportation; 15 Office of Management and Budget; 16 National Association of Home Builders; 17-18 Texas Transportation Institute; 19 Goodyear Tire & Rubber; 20 Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (in 1956, 16 weeks, in 2006, 14 weeks); 21-22 Fortune; 23 Online Publishing Association; 24-25 Chief Executive research; 26 Duke University Medical Center; 27-28 Chief Executive research; 29-30 Time; 31-32 Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah; 33 Kevin Phillips, Arrogant Capital; 34-36 Business Week; 37 Fidelity Investments; 38 Chief Executive research (in 1965 12 Fortune 500 companies were located in Pittsburgh) 39-40 American Booksellers Association; 41 Jeffrey Hollender and Stephen Fenichell, What Matters Most

Compiled by JOHN KADOR