Nuggies: Monster Energy and a $12 Minimum Wage
Thursday, February 18th, 2021
Welcome to the thirty-sixth edition of Nuggies, an email newsletter that aggregates articles and commentary on business, economics, startups, and more, in bite-sized nuggets sent right to your email weekly. Created by and for college students.
Our quote of the week comes from Naval Ravikant, “the more you know the less you diversify.”
This Week’s Articles:
GameStop, meme stocks, and wallstreetbets w/Tommy Pero and Spencer Koehl, All Else Equal
We were honored to be invited to talk on the All Else Equal podcast about the GameStop saga this week. We covered the entire story, from the initial value play by Reddit trader Roaring Kitty through to the January skyrocket in stock price to the aftermath and fallout.
Listen here
How Monster Beverage Shares Soared a Monster 100,000% in the Last 20 Years, Odd Lots
This podcast takes a look at the story of Monster Energy, the storied brand whose stock has actually soared over the past 20 years. Not a typical name that comes up when one thinks of huge stock market winners over the past 20 years, Monster was able to produced outsized returns consistently. Definitely worth a listen to hear the full story.
Listen here
Act II: Lowercarbon Capital
Check out the manifesto from sustainability focused venture fund Lowercarbon capital. It walks through what it means to invest in the sustainability economy and gives a comprehensive breakdown of how VCs should think about investing in the sector. Especially at a time when extreme climate events are becoming more harmful and frequent, this is an important industry for VCs to fund.
Read it here
Minimum Wage Solution: $12/hour with COLA, Barry Ritholtz
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Barry Ritholtz shares his theory on how to address calls for minimum wage increases. Ritholtz suggests an increase to $12 an hour with cost of living (COLA) adjustments in order to address increasing wealth inequality without overheating the economy or labor markets. His argument is largely based in academic papers that agree that modest minimum wage increases do not end up hurting job growth and help to lift people out of poverty. Ritholtz takes a data-driven approach to answering the question and this is necessary reading for anyone interested in the topic.
Read it here
This Week’s Tweets:
^AirBNB CEO
This Week’s Wildcard (an extra, interesting nugget):
Check out I Miss My Bar, a website that recreates an entire bar atmosphere for you and suggests music to go along with it. You can control the loudness of the bartender working, people talking, rain on window, serving drinks, and street + night ambience.
This Week’s Question:
Can Bitcoin ever become an establish haven currency?
What are we listening to this week?:
Outside of iMissMyBar.com and the All Else Equal Podcast? This week we’re throwing it back to when before Drizzy made Tik Tok music. This classic album features hits such as Started from the Bottom and Too Much, but also features Drake’s best song of all time, Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2. Definitely worth a listen to warm you up in these 5 degree South Bend days.
Thank you for reading! Nuggies is created by Thomas Pero and Spencer Koehl, two undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.
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