Part of my life is spending a reasonable amount of time hanging around online, seeking out some valuable piece of information about Michigan, the financial markets, pastry stores opening in my area, and not playing Text Twist. Over the past couple months as the markets and Michigan news have gotten increasingly more challenging (GM/Chrysler Merger, etc.), I have become increasingly aware of a blogger by the name of ZAC BISSONNETTE. Primarily, I have noticed him writing on a stock market blog that I regularly read (originally established and run by AOL) called Blogging Stocks. In the world of blogs, this is a fairly gigantic one and many eyeballs find their way onto this website with regularity. The most consistent aspect of his writing is his overwhelmingly negative attitude toward the domestic auto industry. Every time I have read one of his articles I have thought to myself something along the lines of "Holy Crap - this guy who must be some sort of market guru with incredible insight is important enough to write for Blogging Stocks, AND he absolutely hates us. This is bad."
So that I don't sound like a complete jerk who is blowing off this guy's points, I am first going to give you some brief information about him, then give you some of his quotes, and then I will allow you to develop your own point of view about this person. In fact, in many respects I think that he is on or close to the mark in what he says when he is being objective, but when he delves into editorializing, you will almost certainly find the little information I know about him to be fascinating considering the fairly visible soap box he has at his disposal.
As far as I can tell, ZAC BISSONNETTE is a 20 year-old sophomore student at the University of Massachusetts. That's it - all the information that I have. That means that last year he was 19 and a freshman, and one year before that he was concerned about whether or not he could find a date to prom. I know nothing about his intellect or his character beyond that, but he is a student with 20 total years of life experience. Please keep that in mind as you read every one of these quotes that he has written on Blogging Stocks:
"What better way to create more faith in General Motors than to hand over ownership of the company to anyone who buys a Pontiac? I'd rather have the $300, thank you very much because there's an overwhelming probability that GM equity will end up worthless."
"As negative as the sentiment surrounding GM is, the outlook is even bleaker."
"For investors, it's hard to see any long-term upside in shares of General Motors."
"The sad thing is that, given the pivotal role that the Rust Belt can play in swinging elections, the special interest groups may be able to sway lawmakers into scraping the bottom of the broken piggy bank to fund this abortion." - That has got to be offensive to several people.
"If General Motors is anywhere near as bad at selling car brands as it is at selling cars, shareholders are in trouble."
This is only a smattering of his thoughts, literally since OCTOBER 18TH - that's Saturday and today is Monday. What the hell is this guy's problem? Does he have any experience in the automobile industry, or direct link to financial analysts? To make matters worse, perception and confidence are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL in today's difficult markets, and this Detroit-automobile hating boy has an incredibly loud microphone in which to spew his clear and unarguable hatred. With my Michigan pride and no knowledge about ZAC BISSONNETTE, these articles have scared the Jesus out of me, and I can only imagine what other kind of havoc they are wreaking on people's mental state in Michigan and other places around the country. All of this from a 20-year-old kid in Massachusetts who is probably in Calculus 2 right now at his university. I have an overwhelmingly huge problem with this. What can we do? Is there any way to fight back?
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6 comments:
every time he posts a new blog you should copy and paste this exact entry as a comment.
every time.
maybe then he will stop writing, or diversify his topics.
Alex, that is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. I actually just added my entire post as a comment to his earlier article as you recommended. We'll see if I can keep up the steam! Thanks for your thoughts and for reading.
I think you are taking those too personally against Detroit. Its no different than being bearish against financials 8 or mortgage lenders 6 months ago. I also think I also generally agree w/ all of his comments. Even if GM suddenly came out w/ an amazing new car and had them on the lots tomorrow... they'd still be in for an extremely rough time though the next year. The economic environment as a whole will I think will probably be the determining factor of big 3(or 2) survivability. This guys blog... even if it was Buffett or Soros.. can't influence an auto stocks or their ability to raise capitol like it could potentially effect banks.
Good thoughts, Zach - I'm always open to some good discourse. I certainly don't claim to be right about many things, just the vast majority of them. I certainly agree that auto stocks are not as critical to the companies' survival as bank stocks, but I strongly disagree that public perception does not have considerable impact on the success or failure of a company. If someone tells you "don't buy that piece of crap because that company is going to go bankrupt and I'm an expert on the subject", you're going to claim that this will have no impact on your purchasing decision? I think that would be a spurious claim. I hope my main point that comes through in my post is that our expert on the subject as only barely removed from the Jonas Brothers' demographic, and must be taken with a shaker of salt.
Ken. Relax. This guy is just a raging douche. Only seconds ago I got an IM from the friend who I stay with in Virginia who works for Freddie Mac. It linked me to bloggingstocks and a post blasting a Facebook group of which my friend is a member. I then noticed the author and much like Kirk in Wrath of Khan, I clenched my fist and screamed "ZACCCCCCCC!". Apparently he just trashes everyone/everything. People like this usually self-implode.
One more thought for now - in my mind, Detroit and autos have a +1 correlation. It's like saying "I'm not saying that you're a bad person, but I do hope that everyone else in your family runs out of money and dies." Of course, not everyone feels that way.
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