Nvidia

Is it, or isn’t it a bubble? Pop!

Of course, the sky-high market valuation of AI is a bubble. AI start-ups will go under. Investors will lose money and rue the day they bought shares in today’s AI equivalent of pets.com. At least pets.com stockholders have sock puppets to remind them of their financial folly.

But the debate about when the bubble is going to burst distracts from the potential of AI.

It’s unrealistic to expect AI leader Nvidia to repeatedly pound out 62 percent quarter revenue gains to $57B, and 65 percent net income hikes to $31.9B.

The revenue and earnings bases have become too large to generate huge quarterly gains.

Nvidia’s revenues/earnings treadmill is slowing down. CEO Jensen Huang projects a 14 percent rise in Q4 revenues to $65B. That performance might spook some on Wall Street to declare the beginning of the end for AI.

But in the real world, AI attention should focus on lower-tier companies, such as yesterday’s technology darling IBM.

Once revered as Big Blue, IBM’s Q3 revenues rose nine percent to $16.3B, which is half of Nvidia’s quarterly profit.

CEO Arvind Krishna said IBM’s AI book of business stands at more than $9.5B as clients rely on its technology “to deliver real business value with AI. That AI number is not too shabby.

How is one of think of AI? The title of one of the greatest films of all time comes to mind: “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Let’s stop worrying about the bursting AI bubble and accept it for the game-changing technology that it may be.

On second thought: the film Dr. Strangelove ended with the global nuclear holocaust set off by the detonation of the Soviet Union’s “doomsday machine.”

Can’t Pete Hegseth find something useful to do? Can you imagine former Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta or Jim Mattis cutting ties with Scouting America because it attacks “boy-friendly spaces.”

In Hegseth’s one-track mind, the Pentagon’s more than 100-year relationship with the organization once known as Boy Scouts has become genderless and a promoter of DEI, according to a memo obtained by NPR.

Hegseth’s draft memo to Congress says the Pentagon will no longer provide medical and logistical aid to the National Jamboree, or allow Scout troops to meet at military bases.

He has been battling the Boy Scouts since it changed its name and started admitting girls in 2018.

As a Fox News host, Hegseth said that forces on the left were dead set on destroying the Boy Scouts, or diluting it into something that stood for nothing.

The war on the Scouts comes during the same week that Hegseth threatened to launch an investigation into Arizona Senator Mark Kelly for participating in a video with other veterans and Democratic lawmakers reminding troops that they have to right to refuse illegal orders.

Veterans and national security professionals swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the US, noted Kelly.

The Pentagon’s Uniform Code of Military Justice backs Kelly up. “All service members have a legal obligation to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful,” it states.

What’s Hegseth’s next move? Will he strip Kelly, who flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, of his Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and multiple Air Medals?

That’s more likely than Hegseth trying to persuade the commander-in-chief about the craziness of invading Venezuela.

He should recite the advice that Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraqi invitation. Powell invoked the Pottery Barn rule of “You break it, you own it,” warning the US would be obligated to occupy Iraq after the war.

That didn’t turn out so well. Invading Venezuela is the easy part. Occupying the country would not be a walk in the park.

Cracker Barrel saga thankfully winds down… Shareholders at the old-timey restaurant chain ousted marketing guru and board member Gilbert Davila at the November 20 annual meeting.

Sensing the writing on the wall, he resigned his position before certification of the vote count the next day. There were 9.6M votes against his re-election to the board and only 6.7M in his favor.

As part of his director duties, Davila signed off on CEO’s Julie Masino’s blockbuster decision to drop Cracker Barrel’s nearly 50-year-old old timer in overalls leaning against a barrel logo, and the words “Old Country Store” from its marketing push. That triggered a massive customer revolt.

Davila was elected to Cracker Barrel’s board on July 10, 2020. He was touted in a press release as the “founder and CEO of DMI Consulting—a leading multicultural marketing, diversity & inclusion and strategy firm in the United States, assisting mostly Fortune 200 companies to develop strategic growth platforms focused on America’s fastest growing populations/segments.”

He also was VP-global diversity and multicultural market development at Walt Disney Co. His skillsets aren’t appreciated very much these days in Cracker Barrel’s key southern and Trump-loving markets.

A good chunk (25.3 percent) of the shareholder vote opposed the re-election of Masino to the board. She has revived the "Old Timer" logo, paused the remodels, and promised an a bigger emphasis in the kitchen and other areas that enhance the guest experience.

Cracker Barrel shareholders will tune in on December 9 when the Lebanon, TN-based company reports first-quarter earnings for fiscal 2026.

Masino has projected full-year fiscal 2026 store traffic to decline from four to seven percent.

The company’s stock is languishing at $27.88, far off its $71.93 52-week high.

It’s fair to say that Masino is on a short leash.

Just awful… The New York Times ran a Sunday front page cover story on Nov. 20 about young conservatives in Spain becoming fans of dictator Francisco Franco, who died 50 years ago.

The generalissimo seized power in 1939 following the Spanish Civil War, where he was backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Spain’s current left-wing government has launched a PR campaign to demythologize Franco and highlight the ways he suppressed free speech and crushed domestic dissent.

The campaign will feature events, talks and “handing out T-shirts promoting free speech, even for awful opinions,” according to the article by Jason Horowitz.

Say what? “Awful” is a subjective word that doesn’t belong in a news story. The word jumped off the page.

What is considered “awful” for members of Spain’s government might be hunky-dory for conservatives, or vice-a-versa.

In Florida this month, I saw souvenir stores selling Gulf of America t-shirts featuring Trump floating in an inner tube while holding a taco, or lounging in a beach chair with a cocktail and an AK-47 at his side.

I thought they were more tacky than awful, but the shirts apparently sell well in the Sunshine State. Paraphrasing Pope Francis, Who am I to judge what is awful or not?

The NYT should do the same.