I do my best to be an informed voter. I read copiously. I discuss issues with my friends and neighbors.
Lately, however, I find myself running up against the limits of my own ignorance. Particularly in the area of economics. Despite my best efforts I keep discovering chasm sized gaps in my knowledge that I can’t seem to cross.
I’m hoping that some knowledgeable "Kos-ian" out there can educate me.
For example: The recent annual report to congress by the Obama administration claims that the US will start creating 95,000 jobs a month in 2010.
Leaving aside the fact that in January experts predicted we would gain jobs and instead we lost 20,000.
Ignoring as well the troublesome statistic that we need to create 127,000 jobs just to keep pace with population growth, or the even more disturbing fact that since the start of the current recession we have some 8.4 million people who have lost their employment.
The thing I want to know – and that NO ONE is talking about, is what percentage of the payroll figures that everyone cites relate to job creation overseas? That is to say, do the figures on job creation/loss only apply to American jobs or do they reflect international payrolls as well?
If in January our economy "lost" 20,000 jobs, where did they go? Did they just vanish from the face of the earth? Or did they tunnel like industrious gophers though the planet’s core to miraculously emerge in some far away land where workers will labor like dogs for table scraps?
In other words, are our jobs being extinguished or are they just leaving town?
And if we create 95,000 new jobs a month, how many of them will be American jobs?
Can anyone out there answer these questions?