Recession Index

(Apologies to Harper's; thanks to the Business Journal for all the news.)

2 -- Number of initial public offerings that occurred in the entire world during the first quarter of 2009. One of those was in the United States.

40 -- Percentage of non-profit organizations that raised less money in 2008 than they did in 2007.

-4.5 -- Percentage by which the gross domestic product is predicted to decline during this quarter of 2009 by UCLA's Anderson School of Management.

2.2 -- Percentage increase in light beer sales in 2008 over 2007. Overall, alcohol consumption was up, largely fueled by increased consumption of inexpensive alcohol.

So, what happened?

Check out this awesome collection of 27 charts explaining the economic crisis at Flowing Data. Thanks once again to hot tipper Brad in Spokane for this link!