6月里，美国总统奥巴马（Obama）为一则不甚重大却也较为罕有的经济方面的好消息欢欣不已：去年的外商对美投资额比2009年同比增长了49%。总统称，本轮由跨国公司或外国投资者输入美国资本的激增，可以催生更多的商业活动和薪水更高的本地工作。说的没错。

In June, President Obama celebrated a rare sliver of good economic news: Foreign investment was up 49% last year over 2009. The president says that this boost in capital shipped to the U.S. by international companies or foreign investors leads to more businesses and higher-paying jobs here at home. He's right.

Laughing Stock/Corbis但是，这并不代表白宫通过运筹帷幄获得了经济胜局。关于这场经济衰退和缓慢复苏，真正的事实是，美国几十年来首次发生了资本的净流失，而非吸引到了更多资本。对于居高不下的失业率和徘徊不前的工资水平，这可能才是唯一关键的解释翻译公司。

But this isn't the economic success story that the White House is spinning. The real truth of the recession and limping recovery is that for the first time in decades America is, on net, losing, not attracting, growth capital. That may be the single most important explanation for persistently high unemployment and stagnant wages.

更令人担心的是，美国投资者正将他们的美元投向海外，其流动速度比外国投资者将资本引入美国境内的速度要快得多。例如2010年，美国的对外投资总额为3510亿美元──比流入美国的外资高出1150亿美元。经济复苏通常是外来投资激增的时期，但此番微弱回升始于2009年中期，美国已然失去了超过2000亿美元的投资。这相当于大约有200万个工作机会从美国流失，转而出现在诸如中国、德国和印度这样的地方翻译公司。

Much more worrisome is that Americans are taking their investment dollars abroad at a faster pace than foreigners are bringing capital to these shores. In 2010, for example, U.S. investment abroad was $351 billion -- $115 billion higher than foreign investment here. Economic recoveries are periods when investment capital usually surges into a country, but since this weakling rebound began in the middle of 2009 the U.S. has lost more than $200 billion in investment capital. That is the equivalent of about two million jobs that don't exist on these shores and are now located in places like China, Germany and India.