Monday, August 15, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com C' hi lMiiigan Oai-Im Customer disservice A Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@uinich.edu BETHANY BIRON EDITOR IN CHIEF MARK BURNS MANAGING EDITOR TEDDY PAPES EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position ofthe Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Leave loans alone Congress shouldn't cut education subsidies The debt deal was bound to have its fair share of pitfalls. The last minute wrangling between Democrats and Republicans was not a compromise, but rather a messy, last-ditch effort to avoid a disastrous default. Failing to reach any kind of appropriate or reasonable spending cuts, the coun- try now has to deal with the mistakes of Congress, the biggest of which is the halting of the government's subsidy on Direct Subsidized Federal Loans. Starting July 1, 2012, the loan pro- gram, which provides loans to graduate and professional stu- dents, will be phased out, leaving many students scrambling to finance their education. In order to ensure that the U.S. main- tains a well-educated population, the Direct Subsidized Federal Loans must be reinstated. The erasure of DSFLs will save revenue, but there are less vital As the U.S. continues to strug- the government a mere $21.6 bil- areas that could have been given gle to produce a strongly educat- lion over the next ten years, which the axe. ed populace, Congress needs to is far less than one percent of the Many areas of the budget are increase its emphasison education projected budget. Rather than worthy of an overhaul, but those in order to maintain a competi- coming to an agreement that that deserved the most scrutiny tive workforce. As undergraduate involved raising revenue to help were skipped over by Congress. education becomes increasingly pay for progressive necessities like Education lacks the guile of commonplace both in the U.S. education subsidies, the govern- heavily lobbied big business and and abroad, graduate degrees ment cut programs that are vital industry, so rather than cutting have become increasingly stan- to the future and progression of corn subsidies and prison bud- dard and necessary. Promoting the U.S. In an attempt to deflect gets, the government is putting graduate-level education ensures negative feedback, Congress has the weight of legislative austerity the creation of more knowledge- stated that the majority of the on the backs of students. College able citizens in both the technical money cut will be redirected to students are going to have to pay and liberal arts fields, which will Pell Grants in order to maintain more for education, which will help continue to push the country the Pell program, which provides create addional burdens, but for forward. For the betterment of the financial support for low-income many it will simply deter them ' future, Congress must reinstate students. While these grants help from enrolling in the first place. the DSFLs. The federal govern- families who can't afford college, The University alone offered 3,992 ° ment should pay for this by rais- there is always going to be a need DSFLs in the 2009-2010 academic ing revenue, but if it is desperately for DSFLs. Democrats may have year.Across the country there will strapped for cash in this Republi- had to adjust some essentials, like be thousands of graduate students can forced austerity, educational social security, due to their part- who have to pay the price for a loan programs should be last thing ner's obstinate refusal to raise poorly negotiated debt deal. eliminated. The other day I called Comcast to fix my Internet. After 45 minutes on hold, I was greeted by a woman with a Southern accent _ tinted with the familiar customer service industry's "anything for you (because you are paying me)" enthu- siasm. Within sec- onds it was clear JONATHAN something was AYLWARD awry; interspersed with this woman's Southern service charm were extremely awkward phrases and totally bizarre inflec- tions. Baffled and trying hard to suppress my laughter, I respectfully asked where this woman (I'll call her Mary) was working from. Indonesia. Aha! She was faking it. I embrace my inner grumpy old man when I say - what the hell happened to America? Over 10 percent of our nation is unemployed, and this woman is employed by a U.S. company doing something that an American would almost assuredly do better. I didn't mention that the Mary offered subpar help - I had to repeat most things I said, and she had to pass meonto adif- ferent department for help. As a tem- porary cranky old white man I felt an impulse to blame illegal immigrants for all of our problems. Remembering the Comcast situation that incited my anger, I was brought back to reality. Illegal immigrants are definitely not the ones running Comcast and out- sourcingjobs to Indonesia. ' The people responsible for that would be the management at Com- cast. But can we really blame them? Their job is to maximize profit for their shareholders. If they can get away with paying workers in Indone- sia with fake Southern accents, why bother paying for the real thing? With no one readily available to pin the blame on, let's return to the accent.'As trivial as it seems, this farce hid something important. Clearly Comcast's customers would ideally like to interact with other English speakers, preferably an easy to understand American - if not, why train Mary to speak in such a way? Comcast's management knows that Americans don't take kindly knowing that these jobs are being shipped overseas. It doesn't seem like a stretch to say that by equipping Mary with a semi-passable Southern accent, Comcast is hoping to dupe us into thinking they are employing Americans. Possibly even more depressing than this pathetic attempt at decep- tion was how well Mary grasped the lifeless, tired inflections of the Amer- ican service industry. David Foster Wallace -described the debilitating psychological effects of the "profes- sional smile" and how it was a bane to both customers and employees. This should be the last thing we spread around the world. Bumper stickers everywhere pro- claim "Buy American." What a bril- liant way to shift the blame away from those that truly affect the economy. A more thoughtful attempt at bumper politics would read "Employ Ameri- can." It isn't too hard to see where the jobs have gone. "Employ American," not "Buy American." The world is filled with incredi- bly cheap labor for American corpo- rations to tap into. Ifacompanygets large enough and wants to expand, it will move its production out of the U.S. When people from one place start demanding high wages, there are always poorer people to turn to. You don't have to take my word for it - look around you. Detroit was once a bustling industrial center; now one in five people in the city are out of work. The workforce of the U.S. simply can't compete for unskilled labor jobs that can be exported to developing countries. I'd hoped that this article was going to be a diatribe against the global capitalist system and the neo- liberal policies that take first world company's jobs and move them to the lowest bidders in the third world, ensuring that everybody loses. Instead, with space at a serious limit and my deadline fast approaching, I'll direct it towards Comcast. The website consumerist.com, a consumer affairs blog that gauges customer feedback, voted Comcast the worst company in America in 2010. From my experiences over the years, that sounds about right. The CEO of Comcast makes 31.1 million dollars per year. He is also a heck of a squash player. He probably deserves to be punched in the face. Jonathan Aylward can be reached at jaylward@umich.edu.