● Percentage of total income earned by the richest 1% of Canadians in 1925: 13.2
● Percentage today: 13.8
● Top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Canadians in 1950: 80
● Top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans in 1950: 91
● Percentage of Afghan households that have electricity: 6
● Amount that U.S. military forces spent on air conditioning in Afghanistan during the last two years: $24 billion
● Annual Gross Domestic Product of Afghanistan: $15.5 billion
● Total profits made by the six largest banks in Canada last year: $25.5 billion
● Number of subsidiaries owned by the six banks that use tax havens around the world: 89
● Amount in taxes they have avoided paying by utilizing these havens during the past four years: $6.5 billion
● Estimated amount of wealth currently located in the world’s tax havens: $18 trillion
● Estimated number of luxury cars owned by Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei: 1,700
● Number of union activists who participated in the first “cyber picket” in a 3D virtual game online in 2007: 1,800
● Average age at which most Canadians expect to retire: 68
● Rank of Canada as having the highest amount of personal wellbeing in the world today: 3
● Rank of Venezuela and the United States, respectively: 6, 12
● Chance that a union member in Britain, Canada and the United States “seldom” or “never” view their union’s website: 1 in 4
● Percentage of unions in the same countries that provide an e-newsletter to members at regular intervals: 65
● Percentage that have a Facebook page: 45
● Factor by which the youth unemployment rate in Canada outpaces that of adults: 2
● Number of Canadians who are billionaires: 61
● Ratio of wealth owned by Canada’s billionaires to that owned by the bottom 50% of the country’s population: 2 to 1
● Ratio of income of non-First Nations Canadians to that of First Nations People living on rural reserves: 2 to 1
● Percentage of Canadians who reported experiencing some form of discrimination in 2004: 4.1
● Percentage in 2009: 9.3
● Of the top 100 U.S. CEOs, number that received a higher salary than their companies paid in federal taxes last year: 25
● Of these 25 companies, number that spent more on lobbying than paid in income taxes: 20
● Percentage of winning U.S. Congressional candidates in 2010 who spent more money than their opponents: 85
● Average number of hours worked per employee each week at the Apple factory in Chengdu, China: 66
● Number of workers at the factory who attempted to commit suicide last May: 18
● Chance that a wheat farmer in Canada supports maintaining the Canadian Wheat Board: 3 in 5
● Government debt as percentage of GDP in Great Britain: 77
● Government debt as percentage of GDP in Canada: 82
● Percentage increase in expenditures on the federal prison system since Stephan Harper came to power in 2006: 87
● Statistical correlation found in North America and Europe between higher prison expenditures and reduced crime: 0
● Number of Americans who are currently receiving food stamps: 45 million
● Percentage of American college students who return to live at their parent’s home after graduation: 85
● Number of “guiding principles” of Labour Watch, a Canadian anti-union organization: 11
● Number of them that deal specifically with “employee rights”: 5
● Date on which CBC host Kevin O’Leary said that unions are “sheer evil” and members “should be thrown in jail”: 19/9/11
● Percentage of Hal Jackman’s wealth that is donated each year through his family’s charitable foundation: 0.06
● Amount of wealth an average income Canadian would have to donate each year to match this percentage, in dollars: 16
● Percentage of Americans who have a favourable opinion of the Occupy Wall Street movement: 54
● Percentage who have a favourable opinion of the right-wing Tea Party movement: 27
Our Times Tally is written by union communications and media consultant Sean Cain (www.seanc60.sg-host.com).
