The Sarmatian Review Index
April 2001
Vol. XXI, No. 2
American statistics 2000
Poverty rate: 14.8 percent in 1992, 11.8 percent in 1999.
Unemployment: 7.5 percent in 1992, 3.9 percent in September 2000.
Life expectancy: 75.8 years for those born in 1992, 77.1 years for those born in 2000.
Demographics: Hispanic population increased by 33 percent; black population, by 10 percent; whites, by 3 percent.
Personal savings rate: 8.7 percent in 1992 (savings as a percentage of after-tax income), -0.1 percent in 1999.
Trade deficit: $37 billion in 1992, $353 billion (est.) in 2000.
Teen drug use: 14.4 percent in 1992, 25.9 percent in 1999.
Obesity (30 pounds or more overweight): 12.7 percent of adult Americans in 1992, 18.9 percent in 1999.
Source: Nancy Benac, "New president will inherit richer, healthier, more diverse nation," Houston Chronicle, 5 November 2000.
Health
Percentage of Russian prison population who have tuberculosis: 10 percent.
Among these, the percentage of those who are developing resistant forms of the disease due to interrupted course of treatment: 30 percent.
Estimated total number of AIDS cases in Russia in 2000: 600,000.
Source: WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland, as reported by AFP, 3 November 2000.
Number of registered cases of AIDS in Russia in November 2000: 71,000.
Number of HIV positive cases in Irkutsk, the Russian Federation, in January 1999: 37.
Number of HIV positive cases in Irkutsk in November 2000: 7,500.
Estimated percentage of drug users among people aged from 15-25 in Irkutsk: 25 percent to 33 percent.
Source: AFP, 12 December 2000.
Number of people in Russia who are linked to the country's growing drug scene: 4 million.
Number of regular drug abusers in Russia: 2 million.
Source: Russian prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov, as reported by AFP (Moscow), 4 November 2000; also AFP, 29 November 2000.
Number of drug addicts in Poland: 40,000 to 60,000.
Source: AFP (Warsaw), 26 October 2000.
Number of registered drug addicts in China in 2000: 681,000.
Estimated number of drug addicts in China: four million.
Source: John Pomfret, "Emergence of 'John Dillingers' spotlights China's gang woes," Houston Chronicle, 19 November 2000.
Rate of HIV infections in Lithuania in 2000: 6.8 per 100,000 population, or the lowest in Central Europe.
Rate of HIV infections in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia/Kaliningrad region: Poland, 15.2 HIV positive cases per 100,000; Estonia, 26.1; Latvia, 33.08; Russia's Kaliningrad 350 per 100,000.
Source: AFP (Vilnius), 21 November 2000.
Percentage of Russians with physical handicaps: seven percent.
Reasons for handicaps: massive increase in the number of workplace accidents and two wars in Chechnya.
Source: Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matveenko, as reported by AFP (Moscow), 4 December 2000.
Demography
Numer of persons of Jewish background worldwide: 13,191,500.
Number of Jews in the United States: 5.7 million.
Source: The American Jewish Committee report, as reported by Houston Chronicle, 23 September 2000.
Number of immigrants per year over the next 20 years necessary to keep Germany's labor force (presently at 40 million) stable: 260,000; the number to increase to one million after 2020.
Source: DIW, an economic institute in Berlin, as reported by Economist, 4-20 January 2001.
Percentage of 'non-Germans' among the German population in 2000: 9 percent; 13 percent, if ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union are included.
Amount of DM per month proposed as a bonus to German parents during the first three years of a child's life (with a view to encounraging German parents to have more children): 1,000, or $484.
Source: Bavaria's premier Edmund Stoiber, as reported by Economist, 4-20 January 2001.
Reality check on income and budgets
Polish budget for 2001 (submitted to the Sejm on 15 November 2000): $39.9 billion.
Source: RFE/RL, 16 November 2000.
Russian budget for 2001 adopted by the Duma on 14 December 2000 and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on 27 December 2000: $40 billion.
Source: AFP, 14 and 27 December 2000.
United States budget for 2001: $2,000 billion.
French budget for 2001: about $200 billion.
Source: AFP, 14 December 2000.
Ukraine's budget for 2001: $7.6 billion.
Source: AFP, 26 December 2000.
Texas budget for 2001: $110 billion.
Source: Houston Chronicle, 19 January 2001.
Kaliningrad's GDP in 1999: $500 dollars per person, or five times less than in neighboring Lithuania and 40 times less than the EU average.
Source: AFP, 9 January 2001.
Economy
Number of McDonald's restaurants in Poland in 2000 (first restaurant opened in 1992): 181.
Source: AFP (Warsw), 3 January 2001.
Russian inflation in 1999 and 2000: 36.5 percent and 20.2 percent.
Inflation in Russia as anticipated by the 2001 budget and as predicted by economists: 12 percent and 14 percent.
Source: AFP (Moscow), 4 January 2001.
Number of hectares of privately-owned land in Russia in 1998 and 1999, respectively: 130 million and 129.6 million, or 7.6 percent of the country.
Shrinkage in private land ownership in Russia between 1998 and 1999: 400,000 hectares.
Percentage of Russian land owned by the government: 92.4 percent.
Source: The Federal Land Service in Russia, as reported by Alla Startseva in Moscow Times, 11 January 2001.
Russia's total foreign debt in 2000: $148 billion, or 60 percent of the country's GDP.
Source: Associated Press, 12 January 2001.
Percentage of federal income tax revenue paid by the top 1 percent of the U.S. population (adjusted gross income of $269,496 per year and up) in 1998: 34.8 percent.
Source: The Wall Street Journal editorial, 6 February 2001.
Cinema
Number of tickets sold in Polish cinemas in 2000: 18.5 million (30 percent less than in 1999).
Top box office movie in 2000: "The Gladiator," with 1.35 million tickets; second place, "The Sixth Sense," an American film; third place, "The Primate," a Polish film about Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.
Total number of tickets sold to Andrzej Wajda's "Pan Tadeusz" and Jerzy Hoffmann's "With Fire and Sword" in 1999: 13 million.
Source: AFP, 18 January 2001.
Crime
Estimated number of Chinese in PRCH who belong to organized criminal groups: one million.
Estimated difference between the numbers of men and women in China: 70 million more men than women.
Source: John Pomfret, "Emergence of 'John Dillingers' spotlights China's gang woes," Houston Chronicle, 19 November 2000.
Internet
Number of Internet users in Russia in 2000: 3 million, of whom 25 percent live in Moscow and 12 percent in Petersburg.
Source: IREX report on the Russian use of the Internet in David Johnson's Russia List #5044, 23 January 2001.
And the Band Played On
Population of Chechnya in 1991: 1.3 million.
Population of Chechnya in 2000: 574,000.
Numer of Chechen population centers totally destroyed by the Russians (zero population at present): 63 out of 420.
Source: Algirdas Jendriukaitis, Secretary of the European Parliament, in a letter addressed to members of the Parliament and to Lord Russell Johnston, President of the European Parliament, as reported by www.kavkaz.org, 12 January 2001.
Back to the April 2001 issue
The Sarmatian Review
sarmatia@rice.edu
Last updated 04/19/01