Jim Cramer declared the AI market perfectly healthy by comparing it to the dot-com bubble. This is like saying your current divorce is going great because it's less violent than the last one.
The man built his argument on a foundation of "it's not as bad as the time I was catastrophically wrong before." Inspiring stuff. Really makes you want to liquidate your index funds and buy whatever he's screaming about this week.
CNBC gave him airtime to explain why concerns about froth are overblown. Froth. That's what we're calling it now. Not a bubble. Not euphoria. Not the thing that happens right before retail traders discover their portfolios have the same value as a used Honda Civic with a salvage title. Froth.
The dot-com comparison works if you squint hard enough to cause permanent vision damage. Back then people bought stock in companies that sold dog food online with no path to profitability. Now people buy stock in companies that promise to replace your job with a chatbot. Totally different. One was stupid. The other is stupid with better graphics cards.
Cramer's analysis contains one accidentally correct point buried under the usual noise. The market does look different than 1999. Specifically, it looks different because everyone who lost money in 1999 is now old enough to need reading glasses to see their current losses.
Every comparison to past bubbles serves the same function. It lets people pretend they've learned something from history while repeating exactly the same behavior. This time it's different because we said the words "this time it's different" out loud.
The real tell is the confidence. Cramer said concerns are overblown with the same certainty he brought to every call he's made in the last twenty-five years. The man has the track record of a weatherman predicting coin flips, but the conviction of a cult leader explaining why the world didn't end on schedule.
Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
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