The financial sector was turned upside down in September and economic news has been pretty awful ever since, topped off with 1970s-style unemployment numbers on Friday. These topsy turvy times have been a gold mine for crazy statistics straight out of bizarro world. In October 2007, the Royal Bank of Scotland bought ABN Amro for $100 billion. But if it had just held its money until after the financial sector meltdown, it could have bought six banks for the price of one – Citibank for $22.5 billion, Morgan Stanley for $10.5 billion, Goldman Sachs for $21 billion, Merrill Lynch for $12.3 billion, Deutsche Bank for $13 billion and Barclays for $12.7, a total of $92 billion. Luckily the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department were able to take advantage of these red-hot discount prices.

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