Tuesday morning news drop
Federal budget 2021 highlights: Child care, recovery benefits, OAS increases – everything you need to know The federal budget is targeting virtually every voting bloc, with billions of dollars in stimulus spending aimed at spurring economic growth (Globe and Mail)
Federal Budget Tax Highlights On April 19, 2021, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland tabled Canada’s federal budget. Read CPA Canada’s Federal Budget Tax Highlights to learn about the most important tax changes announced this year. (CPABC)
What's happening to Vancouver Island's local food supply? Rising land prices are keeping young people out of farming. Local groups, farmers and entrepreneurs are trying to change that (Capital Daily)
The Craziest Market I’ve Ever Seen I was only 10 years old when the DotCom bubble was at its peak. Though I didn’t invest through that era, I feel like I finally understand it now. Not because I believe we are in a similar type of bubble today, but because I have now seen valuations that I cannot rationalize whatsoever. Let’s take a moment to review what I’m talking about. (Of Dollars and Data)
Have Bear Markets Changed Forever? We’ve never seen a bear market like the one we just lived through. Nothing comes close in terms of how quickly it started and how quickly it ended. (Irrelevant Investor)
They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out. (Wired)
Ask an Expert: What’s the Future of Oil in Canada? The Keystone XL pipeline has been cancelled. What happens next? (Walrus)
Marijuana by the numbers as 420, the unofficial high holiday, turns 50 As more states legalize recreational weed, 91% of U.S. adults say marijuana should be legal in some form; 60% approve of recreational use. One in four Americans used cannabis in some form during the past 12 months. Recreational marijuana use is now legal in 17 states and Washington D.C., with New Mexico, Virginia and New York the most recent to approve it. Legal U.S. weed sales will hit $28.3 billion in 2022, up from $22.8 billion this year, a 24% gain (Chicago Tribune)
What Will Happen to All the Empty Office Buildings and Hotels? Commercial real estate has been hit hard by the pandemic, but there are plans to convert some of the now empty spaces into apartment buildings. In the development world, top-to-bottom makeovers can take years, and a robust recovery could make landlords think twice about reinventions. (New York Times)
Half of US adults have received at least one COVID-19 shot Almost 130 million people 18 or older have received at least one dose of a vaccine, or 50.4% of the total adult population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Almost 84 million adults, or about 32.5% of the population, have been fully vaccinated. (AP)’
Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. A willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. The phenomenon has left some places with a shortage of supply and others with a glut. (New York Times)
Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation “I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions. I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count. I Have Blood on My Hands” (BuzzFeed)
