Do you want to be French?

Try to remember this EVERY TIME you have to talk to a customer service representative and you cannot understand them. I did not know that we could do this, but I sure am going to try it. Help bring jobs back to the U.S.A. Ask for an American!

Hi Everyone,

I want to share with you some great information that I found out purely by accident. I believe it can also save and create jobs in America while giving people better customer service.

So, how many times have you called a companies service phone line and found that the rep. can barely speak English? Once with a major mortgage company it was so bad I demanded to speak with someone who spoke English. Right at that moment I broke the code, the secret password for customer service.

Come to find out that every American company using overseas operators must transfer you to an American rep. by saying....... "I want to speak to a representative in America ".
(Don't take no for an answer on this)

This was confirmed by the American rep.. that they must transfer you after that request. I've tried it on a half a dozen major companies including cable, bank, phone and mortgage companies. It works every time and I actually get my issues taken care of.

Another thing to help save even more jobs.... don't use the automated check out lanes they are pushing at the big box stores. Once again, I found out that if we use those check outs rather than cashiers, people lose their jobs too. I've refused to use the automated check outs and have had two cashiers already thank me for help saving their job.

Remember when the banks first started the ATMs? It has revolutionized our lives to be sure, but how many ATMs charge you for getting your own money out of the bank, even though they are saving the cost of employing tellers and other customer service personnel? Forget about the exorbitant fees from machines not belonging to your bank. The so called big box stores will ultimately add costs to your checkout for not using the self serve aisles, just as the gas stations have now virtually eliminated the full service station attendant.

Now that we have very few manufacturing jobs left in the country, corporations are using customer service, technical support, and other communications related labor in India, The Philippines, and ultimately around the world to take more of our jobs. Where is all this leading? Our country has grown by about 30% in the last forty years. For most of that time our economy, and thus job opportunities have been growing. Over the course of the past 10 years, increasingly, corporations have been pressured by Wall St. analysts to meet quarterly earnings expectations, as well as improving quarter over quarter. We milked the productivity teat for all it was worth and the only way to continue to show improvement, the bottom line, and thus stock prices, was to shed expenses. The largest expense of course, being salaries.

As a result of this and many other economic pressures, our companies have reached the point where they have colluded to rob each others customers out of the market for goods, since there aren't enough jobs to support our consumer driven economy. Some would have you believe this is just due to the current downturn, recession, or even the "D" word. But the truth is, we have hit the proverbial wall. The mass of humanity, 5.5 million souls and growing by 500,000 to 600,000 a month of unemployed Americans, not counting the hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions who are under employed or have just given up, is testament to a new society evolving in America.

The lack of jobs, shrinking credit availability, and the resulting number of people who will lose their homes, their savings, and their lifestyle is near catastrophic even now. Over the next couple of years, as the corporate real estate market fails, and the residential homes continue to default, we will be hit full in the face with the consequences of the Fed and this administration having doubled the currency available over the past 18 months. That was before the announcement yesterday that the expected tax receipts as of April 15th is down 30% from expected. The resulting $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009 will only grow as the year progresses, and yet our Congress continues to spend at a rate unsustainable in even a growing economy. In four years federal spending will be 40 to 50% of GDP. We will be an officially Socialist country, with no hope of recovery in the near term. Worse still, we will begin suffering from runaway inflation a a result of the monetary policy.

Our actions from today until the elections of November 2010 are of the most critical consequence in any of our lifetimes, perhaps even the most critical decisions in our national history. We have but one way out. We have to stop our government from spending more than we have. Whatever the consequences, however painful, we have to stop the bleeding. There is no easy way out of this. for those who still believe we can borrow from the world, and spend indiscriminately, without consequence, please apply what you know of your personal economy. When you lose your job, or one of two jobs, and your incoming funds are less than your bills, you do the only rational thing you can do. You reduce your expenditures. If your situation is such that you know it is temporary, and you have enough saved to weather the storm, you still back off, just to make certain you don't run out of money. If your situation is unknown, you take drastic action even selling your home, a car, send your kids to a state school rather than private. You eat beans and rice, not steak and seafood. You act!

Why then would we believe the government can do differently? The situation has changed drastically. It is unknown how long this will last. It is unknown if we will ever recover to the extent of the economy 2 years ago. In fact, understanding that we, as well as our government, has caused this recession by spending more than we made is proof that we must alter our way of living in a major way, as a people. We have to be more responsible on a personal level, and as a whole. Our society must take steps to correct the issues as they exist today.

Social Security is a ponzi scheme that ran out of money this month. Everyone knew this day would come, but it wasn't supposed to have happened until 2017. As of today, we have to start borrowing to pay social security benefits for those currently receiving a check. Medicare and medicaid are breaking the federal budget, and yet we are about to extend those same benefits to another 50 million people. I wonder how that will work for us?

We have some very fundamental changes to make. First and foremost we have to get the attention of our elected representatives. They must understand that we understand, and demand they stop spending money we don't have. They are political and will respond if enough Americans write, call, and email them demanding action now. Next, we have to convince investors that long term results are more critical than quarterly earnings statements. This is a much more difficult task. It can only be accomplished if investors have no choice. As mentioned earlier, we can refuse to talk to customer service representatives who can't speak our language, or if they are known to be offshore. We have very few options available to us for swaying large investors. We can refuse to buy products from corporations who move jobs offshore. We can stop investing in those same companies. This only effective if done in huge numbers. We can also demand the press get behind us. As of now, they are not. The press was given wide powers for a reason and that was as a hedge against an expected tyrannical government, at some point. The mainstream press in this country is rubber stamping everything the liberal left is doing. There is no accountability, and certainly none of the transparency promised in the change wrought by the election of 2008.

We are at a crucial crossroads. Doing nothing is irresponsible. Doing the wrong thing is a guarantee of the demise of our capitalist economy. We can survive as a socialist democracy, just as the European countries do. Do you want to be French?