John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Upselling

I love big ideas and the one I’m about to share may be the biggest idea of 2011!
What if I told you I had devised a way that would reduce personal debt by 8-9% each year (yet there would be zero loss to our quality of life or reduction in things we want to purchase)?

In addition to personal debt reduction, we could eat away at the international trade imbalance by an equivalent annual amount.

And finally, the “generalized frustration” each American feels daily would be moderately and noticeably reduced.

Would you be interested?

Of course, you would.

Here’s my idea. Ban all “up-selling”–the annoying practice of enticing Americans, a group who already can’t shop responsibly, to buy stuff we neither need nor want with money we don’t have!

The only thing we would miss is the stuff we bring home that we neither want nor need….and keep it available for those who truly need these items (yet another economic efficiency).

But–and here’s the brilliant part–only ban upselling domestically. For all international sales we will “require” companies to up-sell. This means every time we transact for a major export—e.g. sell aircraft, soybeans, semi-conductors, etc to a foreign country– we require that the US company ask if they’d like fries, an extra muffin, stamps, batteries, or to open a new bank account (in the US).

Of course, individually no single upsell will make much of a dent. But over time the US trade imbalance will be rectified, we won’t need another bailout from DC, we’ll walk around less antsy becuase we’ll feel competent to shop for ourselves, and for the first time in a long time we’ll be a model of personal fiscal restraint for the rest of the world.

There! That’s my big idea contribution for 2011.