Paul Thomas: Counting the costs of a difficult year

Numbers never tell the whole story, but they do tell a story. Herewith a digital snapshot of the year that was

100,000
The income level at which money ceases to buy happiness, according to a US survey. Up to that point, the more you earn, the happier you are; after that, the effect levels off.

50,000
The average annual wage, in dollars.

0
The number of "super-wealthy" Australians who answered businessman Dick Smith's call to donate 20 per cent of their income to charity.

37 million
The amount, in Australian dollars, for which 25-year-old publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk sued upmarket Sydney department store David Jones over unwanted sexual advances made by its former CEO. This included a punitive damages claim for $2 million which she promised to donate to charity.

850,000
The full and final amount which Fraser-Kirk accepted in an out-of- court settlement. None of it is going to charity.

22
The percentage of Republican voters who believe US President Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

40
The percentage of Americans who believe human beings were created by God within the last 10,000 years, according to a Gallup poll. In 1999 the figure was 47 per cent.

500
The number of instances of theft or loss of fissile material (fuel for nuclear warheads) or radioactive isotopes (which emit harmful radiation) from supposedly secure sites since the mid-1990s, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency report disseminated by WikiLeaks. Most of the sites were in the former Soviet Union.

15
The number of instances in which the stolen or mislaid material included high enrichment uranium and plutonium from which nuclear warheads are made.

72
British Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's approval rating in April after a series of televised pre-election debates, making Clegg the most popular British politician since Winston Churchill at the end of World War II. In May Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister in the Conservative-led coalition Government which has slashed 490,000 public sector jobs and introduced measures that will reduce the average middle-class family's income by more than $20,000 over the next four years.

Minus 14
Clegg's approval rating in November.

3
The limit on the number of players of Polynesian origin in a Crusaders squad that is "enshrined in their articles", according to Andy Haden.

7.75
The average number of players of Polynesian origin in the four Crusaders squads which won Super 12/14 titles during the past decade.

18
The number of PhDs acquired by Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.

282.6
Zimbabwe's public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, the highest in the world.

47
Average life expectancy in Zimbabwe.

350
The number of Zimbabwean children orphaned by Aids every day.

2
The number of professional boxing bouts Sonny Bill Williams is permitted to have over the course of his contract with the New Zealand Rugby Union.

2
The number of bouts Sonny Bill Williams reportedly intends to have over the course of his contract.11 The number of years Alexander Downer was Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to documents released by WikiLeaks, in a 2005 meeting with the US general commanding American and UN forces stationed on the Korean peninsula, Downer suggested that "aid that could prop up North Korea's failing infrastructure should be withheld to bring an end to the regime's tyranny". Starve them into submission, in other words.

The general didn't point out that such a step would cause mass starvation among the victims of the regime's tyranny - the people of North Korea who had endured years of famine in the 1990s - or that mass murder by famine is a measure one associates with the worst communist despots.

He simply noted there were 250 North Korean artillery positions within range of the South Korean capital, Seoul, capable of firing high explosive and chemical weapons.

12,456
The number of violent, drug-related deaths in Mexico during last year.

3010
The number of those deaths which occurred in the border town of Cuidad Juarez.

1.3 million
The population of Cuidad Juarez.

266
The number of people killed by US counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer in the eight series of the hit TV show 24. Bear in mind that each 24-part series takes place in real time over the course of a single day.

250,000
A conservative estimate of the death toll from the Haitian earthquake.

0
The death toll from the Canterbury earthquake.

10
The number of weeks 33 Chilean miners spent trapped underground.

29
The number of miners who died in the Pike River tragedy. RIP.