The Canadian dollar is down below 80 cents, the lowest it’s been since the dark days of the recession. The loonie is trading at 79.08 cents US at noon, down 0.79 of a cent.
The loonie hasn’t been this low since the recession. During the recession, the dollar regularly stayed below 80 cents, reaching its lowest point in March 2009, at 76.98 cents, NewsNow reported.
The dollar Thursday morning lost more ground in the wake of Wednesday’s announcement from the Federal Reserve that left markets with the impression that the central bank will start hiking rates around the middle of this year.
The Toronto stock market was lower Thursday as another day of declines in mining and energy stocks competed with better than expected earnings.
The S&P/TSX composite index fell 76.2 points to 14,526.68.
Meanwhile, Canada’s richest one percent have names like the Thomsons, the Westons and the Irvings. They occupy a stratum of about 261,000 people who reap about one-tenth of total earnings in the country.
But what of the remaining 99 percent? In keeping with a recent Oxfam International report that projected that more than half of all wealth will fall under control of the most prosperous one per cent by next year, Canada’s billionaires can expect to get richer than ever.
Out of Statistics Canada’s five income groupings, the highest-earning 20 percent of tax filers made an average of $87,800 in after-tax income in 2011, up 2.4 percent from $85,700 in 2007.
Topping that group, Canada’s one-percenters earned at least $191,000 per year, Statistics Canada says.
