Facts That Make A Difference
1. SAVING MORE – Americans now save 2.8% of their income up from 2.4% just one month ago (Source: Dept of Commerce).
2. OUT-OF-POCKET - Households pay 31% of total health care expenditures (e.g., prescription drugs, hospital care, physicians’ costs, clinical services, nursing home care). The remaining 69% is paid by businesses, insurance companies and governments (federal, state and local). The data is from calendar year 2007 (source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services).
3. FROZEN – 55% of American information technology departments (in mid-sized companies) have hiring freezes in place at this time (Source: Info-Tech Research Group)
4. A BIG NUMBER–China’s foreign currency reserves exceed $1,950,000,000,000. This is $1.95 Trillion – the largest in the world. This is an increase of $45 Billion in just 3 months (Source: Associated Press).
5. GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS - In spite of losing 37.0% in calendar year 2008, the worst total return performance for the S&P 500 in 77 years, 5 of the top 6 percentage gain days in the last 50 years for the index occurred in the last 3 months of 2008. The S&P 500 also suffered through 4 of its 6 worst percentage loss days from the last 50 years in 2008 (source: Standard & Poor’s).
Posted by The Weekly Commentary at 1/26/2009 12:01 PM 
Categories: foreign currency, health care, saving, hiring
Categories: foreign currency, health care, saving, hiring
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