Air turbulence: When can it become dangerous?
Flight turbulence like that encountered by a Singapore Airlines flight on Tuesday is extremely common, but there's one aspect of severe turbulence an aviation expert says can lead to serious injury.
The world's wealthiest people, whose fortunes already strained comprehension, collectively gained US$1 trillion last year, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
Elon Musk, the world's richest person, alone gained nearly $118 billion in just the last 12 months. Meanwhile, the United Nations estimated 150 million people fell into poverty in 2021.
Other big gainers in the billionaire bunch: Luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault (up $62.7 billion) and Google buddies Larry Page and Sergey Brin (up $47 billion and $45 billion, respectively). Mark Zuckerberg's year was the stuff of tech titan nightmares, but he's still about $25 billion richer for it.
As much as 2021 may be remembered as the year of the worker, thanks to rising wages and renewed unionization efforts fueled by a tight labour market, the astronomical gains by the world's 0.001% underscore the vastness of the wealth gap between workers and the executives and shareholders whom they serve.
For the gazillionth year in a row, 2021 was a good time to be rich. Time and again, Wall Street shrugged off concerns about inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and new COVID-19 variants to keep equity markets humming. On that front, the wealthy owe a big hat tip to the U.S. Federal Reserve, which plowed tens of billions of dollars into financial markets every month while keeping interest rates near zero — an ultra-loose monetary policy designed to keep cash moving in financial markets as the pandemic jolted the global economy in 2020. That stimulus effort fueled a stock bonanza in 2020 and 2021, but the Fed gravy train is going away in the first half of this year.
The S&P 500 gained nearly 27% last year, while the Dow gained about 19% and the Nasdaq ended the year up 21%.
Valuations on other assets such as cryptocurrencies, commodities and property also soared, further bolstering the uber-wealthy's coffers.
According to Bloomberg, the combined net worths of the 500 people in its billionaire index now exceeds $8.4 trillion. That's more than the gross domestic product of any single country on the planet except the United States and China.
Throughout the year, American lawmakers' proposals for a so-called billionaire tax were derided, rather unsurprisingly, by superbillionaires such as Musk. The Tesla CEO, who in recent years has paid little or no income tax and whose now-trillion-dollar car company was partly built on government aid, has been especially vocal in opposing a tax on the uber-wealthy to fund a more robust social safety net in America.
Since the pandemic began, America's billionaires have seen their collective fortunes soar more than 70% to more than $5 trillion, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality, which analyzed Forbes data.
Democrats argue that billionaires' windfall alone over the past two years would be enough to pay for U.S. President Joe Biden's social infrastructure plan. But the billionaire tax legislation was dead on arrival this fall when Senator Joe Manchin voiced concerns about penalizing "people in the stratosphere."
Flight turbulence like that encountered by a Singapore Airlines flight on Tuesday is extremely common, but there's one aspect of severe turbulence an aviation expert says can lead to serious injury.
British Columbia serial killer Robert Pickton was attacked and sustained life-threatening injuries in a Quebec prison Sunday in what officials described as a 'major assault.'
In his latest column for CTVNews.ca, former NDP leader Tom Mulcair argues that if there's an unofficial frontrunner in the eventual race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader, it has to be former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
The Toronto Blue Jays have offered tickets and a signed baseball to a fan who says she was struck in the face by a 110 m.p.h (177 km/h) foul ball at Friday’s game.
Members of a killer whale pod related to an orphan orca calf that escaped a remote British Columbia tidal lagoon last month have been spotted off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.
Ontario Provincial Police continue to investigate a long weekend fatal boat collision on Bobs Lake, north of Kingston, Ont.
An investigation has been opened into the death of Matthew Perry and how the “Friends” actor received the anesthetic ketamine, which was ruled a contributing factor in his death.
New inflation data is 'welcome news' for consumers and an economist says it could signal the possibility for a interest rate cut as several core measures also continue to ease.
House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus is facing fresh Conservative-led calls to resign, this time over "very partisan" and 'inflammatory' language used – the Liberals say mistakenly – to promote an upcoming event.
Montreal photographer captured the moment a Canada Goose defended itself from a fox at the Botanical Garden.
Public libraries in Atlantic Canada are now lending a broader range of items.
Flashes of purple darting across the sky mixed with the serenading sound of songs will be noticed more with spring in full force in Manitoba.
Catching 'em all with impressive speed, a 7-year-old boy from Windsor, Ont. who only started his competitive Pokémon journey seven months ago has already levelled up to compete at a world championship level.
A sanctuary dedicated to animals with disabilities is celebrating the third birthday of one of its most popular residents.
2b Theatre recently moved into the old Video Difference building, seeking to transform it into an artistic hub, meeting space, and temporary housing unit for visiting performers in Halifax.
A B.C. woman says her service dog pulled her from a lake moments before she had a seizure, saving her life.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.