Roger (@rdd147)

Comcast announces another 1000 layoffs, joining Pepsi and Boeing today, with tens of thousands expected at Disney based on notices dropped last week.

It’s about to get brutal as layoffs hit the actual economy and not just tech.

Bloomberg Verified account @business 17m

Comcast is planning to cut more than 1,000 jobs in the company’s connectivity and platforms divisions as it prepares to separate the declining units from its faster-growing media and entertainment division bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Roger @rdd147 12m

No shortage of new H100 or H200 chips in China. New servers and chips readily available with pricing $24k to $35k and fully loaded Lenovo, $DELL and $SMCI servers.

50 available $NVDA H100 in stock here retailing for $27,000

Roger @rdd147 21m

Expect a massive number of restaurant bankruptcies in coming months as billions of dollars of debt matures that lenders aren’t refinancing, forcing franchise owners to secure cash advance loans or default.

Jonathan Maze Verified account @jonathanmaze 56m

I've had about a dozen conversations with a variety of people this afternoon at the Restaurant Finance and Development Conference in Vegas today. They represent franchisees, PE firms, lenders, consultants, etc. They did not paint a positive picture about the environment for fast-food franchises.

Here's what they're saying:

* The lending environment is brutal. It's difficult for franchisees in a lot of brands to get financing, even some historically strong brands. But many franchisees took out loans 5-6 years ago and it is now coming due. That is a crucial factor in the wave of recent bankruptcy filings. I spoke with one lender who said that legacy fast-food franchises are too difficult right now, and emerging chains are too hit or miss.

* Many franchisees are as a result turning to merchant cash advance loans, which are awful. I spoke with an attorney who tells his franchisee clients that he'll fire them as clients if they do that. "Just shut your doors now." Use of advance financing has taken off this year. I had not seen it in restaurant bankruptcies before last year at all.

* There is a sense that the fast-food market will likely remain weak for some time, which is something I've said for a while. There are a lot of things working against the business right now: Consumer pressure because of inflation, weak population growth, soaring use of GLP-1 medications, etc. Unless something happens to stir consumer spending in a way we can't see right now, the environment for fast-food franchises will remain difficult for some time.

I've come to this event almost every year it's been held for the past two decades. Bleakest I've seen it since the Great Recession.
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Roger @rdd147 35m

Translation; Anthropic grows increasingly concerned about Democrats notice that they are preparing to issue subpoenas to $ANT OpenAi $AMZN $AVGO $NVDA and $MSFT as first investigation and disclosure of financial round tripping, backdoor deals, contract terms, and stock buys to elevate valuations.

They can’t cover the $1 trillion of commitments when backdoor fraud is shut down in January.

The Daily Mao 🏝️ @TheDailyMao 4h

Anthropic now plans to push for govts to require firmware level locks on Western GPUs that prevent "unapproved" (Chinese open-source) models from being run on them, in the name of "AI safety" and "national security."

AMD/Google are on board, only Jensen opposed it

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Roger @rdd147 45m

Two law-enforcement sources confirm to CBS News that the U.S. Justice Department’s National Security Division is now actively investigating Megaspeed over potential violations of advanced-chip export restrictions.

$NVDA

Roger

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