Comparatively Speaking

Seventy-five percent of today's consumers shop with lists, compared to 45% who did so in 2008. Yesterday, American Airlines shares fell 33%. Nearly 90% of all people have nightmares at some point, and 5% of adults have them chronically. Living with a smoker increases a child's chance of getting an ear infection by 37%, unless it's the mother, then it's 62%. Pregnant women who eat well are 24% less likely to have a child with a cleft lip. Twenty percent of Wal-Mart customers do not have bank accounts. The HairMax LaserComb stimulates hair growth 93% of the time. Between 2007 and 2011, there was a 9% decline in the number of products stocked in American pantries and medicine cabinets. According to 72% of consumers, the economy has a ways to go until it hits rock bottom. Almost everyone in California--96%--is optimistic about the trend of office-space sharing. Sales of Huggies diapers fell 4% from August to September. And this is just a fraction--like maybe 65%--of the statistics reported in today's Wall Street Journal, which is the newspaper I read 100% of the time that I read newspapers, which is only about 30% of the time I am reading something.

An awful lot of people seem to be answering an awful lot of questions, but nobody has ever asked me anything. I have never gotten a survey in the mail about anything but politics, and nobody has ever called my home to ask my views on smoking or nightmares or diapers, yet these statistics on everything but the kitchen sink--and I bet you could find those if you tried--keep popping up in the news, like they matter. What are we to do with all these numbers? And who's responsible for them? Are people getting paid for this? Exactly what percentage of college graduates currently ask people questions for a living, as compared with how many will do it in the future?

I want answers.