General Motors (GM) has been promising a self-driving car since 1956. Finally, the industry seems poised to deliver…

Give or take a few decades, billions of dollars in losses, and a vehicle that looks like a Roomba mated with a radar dish.

The world's biggest automakers now want to sell you a robotaxi you actually own: sensors, daily calibrations, aesthetic crimes, and all.

But with the sci-fi dream of Tomorrowland and Yesteryear nearly a reality, it raises the question: does the American consumer actually want a self-driving car?

Or, perhaps more pertinently, can they afford one?

Carnegie Mellon professor Phil Koopman floated the idea of fractional ownership modeled on private jets.

Ah, yes, PJs: the absolute model of affordability.

— Brooks & Cas

Khaby Lame built a following of 160 million on TikTok by mocking people who overcomplicate simple things via viral so-called “life hacks”.

His record-breaking $975 million deal is starting to look like fodder for one of his videos.

In January, Lame's company announced a reverse merger with Rich Sparkle Holdings (ANPA), a Hong Kong-based financial printing firm, in which Lame's intellectual property would be exchanged for 75 million Rich Sparkle shares.

Day traders piled in, briefly sending the stock to $180. It has since shed more than 90% of that value, closing Friday at around $9.

Now the exits are closing. Interactive Brokers has listed Rich Sparkle as non-tradable. ETrade (MS), Merrill Lynch (BAC), Fidelity, Charles Schwab (SCHW), and Vanguard have all blocked or restricted online trading.

Georgetown finance professor James Angel, a FINRA program director, told the source publication that brokers often restrict low-cap stocks whose survival is uncertain, because their disappearance creates logistical headaches for back offices, not just portfolios.

Meanwhile, the deal's legal status remains genuinely murky.

Rich Sparkle called the acquisition "completed" in a January press release, but its most recent SEC filing, dated March 31, still described it as contingent on unmet conditions. A January filing said the deal would be void if those conditions weren't satisfied by February 28.

Lame, for his part, has since removed Rich Sparkle's ticker from his social media bios. But he has not commented publicly.

With foreign-registered companies, the timeline for disclosure can stretch months, per Angel. In the meantime, Lame has moved on to a Lego collab and the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics. And hype-hungry investors are left holding the bag.

Mark Zuckerberg called glasses "the ideal form factor for personal superintelligence." Whether or not that's true, the numbers are moving in his direction.

Meta Platforms (META) shipped 7.3 million pairs of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses in 2025, more than it ever sold of its VR headsets in a single year. IDC estimates the AI glasses market will reach 13.4 million units in 2026.

The device starts at $299 for the base model and $799 for a display-equipped version, which has been largely sold out in the US.

Investors who want exposure to this trend may have a more direct option than buying Meta itself. EssilorLuxottica (ESLOY), the Paris-listed $100 billion optical conglomerate that manufactures the Ray-Ban frames, now trades at a forward earnings multiple below its five-year average, after shedding more than a third of its value from recent highs.

The stock trades at 25x expected earnings, compared with Meta's 18x, per WSJ reporting. But that premium, the publication argues, comes without Meta's baggage: the company faces heavy AI capital spending and unresolved legal liability from two social media addiction trials lost last month.

Traditional luxury eyewear can carry gross margins of around 80%. Smartglasses margins may run closer to 50%, per analyst estimates, meaning faster sales volume is required to offset the compression.

EssilorLuxottica is facing down upcoming competition from Alphabet (GOOGL), partnering with Kering (PPRUY) and Warby Parker (WRBY), as well as a rumored Apple (AAPL) entry into the category.

But what it has already, no rival can easily replicate: 18,000 stores and millions of pairs in production. It may not be a victory lap, but it’s a meaningful head start.

For income investors, dividend appreciation ETFs are a fine idea in theory. But in practice, the biggest one, the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF, yields just 1.6%.

That’s because it is full of tech companies that raise dividends by amounts that are technically increases… but practically nothing. Think Apple, Broadcom (AVGO), and Eli Lilly (LLY), which currently yield just 0.4%, 0.8%, and 0.7%, respectively.

For income investors, that is a long way to go for a modest payout.

So Barron's ran a tighter screen: stocks with at least 5% dividend yields, at least one payout hike in the past five quarters, dividends consuming no more than 80% of profits, and positive analyst earnings growth expectations for 2026.

Three companies made the cut.

Verizon (VZ) yields 5.8% after hiking its quarterly payout from $0.69 to $0.71 in January, and trades at less than 10x forward earnings. Analysts expect 4% earnings growth in 2026, and the dividend consumes just 58% of estimated profits.

VICI Properties (VICI), the Las Vegas-focused REIT that owns Caesars Palace and the Venetian Resort, yields 6.5% and carries analyst expectations for 10% adjusted funds from operations growth this year.

Best Buy (BBY) rounds the list with a 6% yield and a penny-per-share payout increase last month, even as the retailer navigates an e-commerce headwind.

All three have had obvious problems, which is precisely why the yields are this attractive. The screen's purpose is not to find flawless businesses, but companies whose management teams are still confident enough to sign up for a growing long-term cash commitment.

With consumer confidence at a literal all-time-low, that might just be an appealing proposition.