Notes From All Over -- The Minimum Wage Edition -- January 5, 2021

Link here. I cannot think of any one issue of which I'm more conflicted. I think "the market" should determine wages / salaries but my heart goes out to those folks barely hanging on. I guess the best way to manage this issue would be to let "the market" determine the wages / salaries but use the IRS (as we do now) to ensure no one in this country goes without basic needs: housing, potable water and sewer, food, electricity, internet access, healthcare, transportation. Did I forget anything?

Time for folks to watch Mr Deeds Goes To Town.  This was the first Capra film to be released separately to exhibitors and not "bundled" with other Columbia features. On paper, it was his biggest hit, easily surpassing It Happened One Night. Capra won an Oscar for this movie, as director.

Marilyn: It Should Happen To You. Judy Holliday, of course, was perfect. But I think Marilyn Monroe, almost Judy Holliday's exact contemporary, and hitting the big time at the same time, would have been just as good, possibly even better. Judy Holliday died at the age of 43, in 1965, two weeks short of her 44th birthday. Monroe died at age 36, in 1962. 

Lucille Ball: holy mackerel! Judy Holliday sounds just like Lucille Ball. Both Holliday and Lucille Ball were born in New York, though the former in NYC and the latter in western NY, just across the state line from Pennsylvania.

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The Third (Fourth?) Surge

Despite the recent ZeroHedge story suggesting things will be different in 2021, the newest Covid-19 surge is off and running. Link here. The number of cases per capita in the top five states had been falling but are now surging again:

• Arizona leaps over California, from #2 to #1. And it was a huge jump for Arizona:
• followed by Rhode Island (#3), Tennessee (#4), and, Oklahoma/New York (tied at #5);
• moving up quickly is Florida, at #7;

By the way, the Covid-surge was not the biggest story over at The WSJ  today. That honor goes to the story on the FiatChrysler-PSA merger. This is quite a story from a business point of view, but in the big scheme of things, it will be but a footnote in the history of automobile manufacturing when the history books are written in 2050.

The story coming out of Norway is an "old" story. I continue to opine that EV-Norway story is an outlier.

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Corky Is Back Home, Safe And Sound