The numbers making news during the week of October 15, 2012

50 percent
Proportion of Chinese who say corrupt officials are “a very big problem.” This is up from 39 percent in 2008. Pew Research Center

7.4 percent
China’s 3^rd quarter GDP growth. This was the first quarter that growth missed official targets since the depths of the global financial crisis in Q1 of 2009. Reuters

$50 Billion
Rough estimate on the “capital flight” from China over the past year. Financial Times

14
The age of some interns found to be working at a Foxconn factory in Yantai. Huffington Post

$350 billion
Total assets of China’s monopolistic electric grid operator State Grid Corp. Reformists say that splitting it into smaller SOEs would make its books more transparent and allow greater scrutiny of its operating costs. Reuters

160 square feet
Size – roughly the same as a parking spot – of new apartments being designed by China’s largest real estate developer. The cost is roughly $21,500 per unit - around six times the per-capita disposable income of China's urban residents. Many larger apartments cost as much as 40 years’ income. Wall Street Journal

30 to 40 percent
Proportion, on average, of daily driving distance that Beijing taxis aren’t carrying passengers. Economic Observer

24
Number of times “China” or “Chinese” was mentioned during the US presidential debate - more than mentions of Social Security, middle class, Afghanistan, and Medicare combined. New Yorker