Economists are keen to gauge all kinds of ancillary data about an economy to divine the general direction in which an economy is developing; for instance, electricity usage, pollution rates, commodity prices, real estate values and vacancies, etc.

So how about measuring the number of mistresses a businessman is able to support? The China Daily’s Tuesday 17 February 2009 print edition had an article about a Chinese businessman that juggled five mistresses. Tragically, one of the mistresses died as she plunged the car in which she was driving her boyfriend and the four other mistresses to a resort area; she had lost in the first round of a beauty and talent contest the businessman had hosted to determine which of the five mistresses he should keep.

“The Shanxi native reportedly became Fan’s mistress shortly thereafter and lived with him in a two-room apartment bought by the man…Fan, a married entrepreneur, also kept other four mistresses two of whom were his employees and two his former clients, the report said.”

The economics of keeping a mistress in China is enlightening about how China’s New Money has chosen to invest its recent financial gains:

“Fan introduced the five to each other, but none chose to break up with him, as each reportedly received 5,000 yuan (US$733) a month plus a rent-free apartment.”

Clearly, in an economic downturn of global proportions, this bit of overhead can quickly seem burdensome. So, for a bit of creative vetting:

“But business began to go bad, and Fan decided to lay off all but one mistress to save money… To select the best one, he reportedly staged a talent show in a hotel last May, even inviting an instructor from a local modeling agency to be a judge…”

It seems though, not just mistresses are succumbing to the economic downturn; errant journalists under pressure to produce are as well.

Yesterday’s China Daily retracted the story, though, which was apparently a translation word-for-word of a Chinese article printed in Wuhan some time before.

Seems the dismal science has many more data points to choose from than ever before.