Many of the jobs are going to India and China, where people are delighted to work for a sixth of what an American worker would earn, failing to realize, in their excitement, that their children might have to do without cell phones. Not to mention separate bathrooms.

Some experts believe that outsourcing is good for America´s economy, that other jobs will be created to replace the ones being lost. This is already happening to an extent, with hundreds of people being hired to provide counseling for the unemployed. Other new jobs include outsourcing coordinators, Mandarin translators, and used Lexus salesmen.

But outsourcing has angered some politicians and labor unions, who want to see it outlawed. They´re concerned, naturally, that America will lose too many jobs, that the only jobs we´ll be left with are nose jobs.

They don´t want American workers to fall victim to corporate greed and unfair competition. Indeed, the rules of employment are quite different in some countries: You don´t get any benefits, you don´t have something called "FICA" deducted from your paychecks, and you don´t have to buy cookies from your co-workers´ children.

Even so, I´m reluctant to denounce outsourcing, not because it benefits the economy, but because I´ve come to realize, after much research, that I can outsource my column. From now on, it will be written by a man in India named Raj Balakrishnan. He´s agreed to email a new column to me every week and I´ve promised to send him a monthly check for a couple of grand. That´s rupees, not dollars, but he´ll be happy with it, just as I´ll be happy with the remaining 80 percent of what editors pay me. It´s a win-win situation. He writes the columns, I write the checks, we both look employed.

If Raj works out (he has a good sense of humor, but a bad sense of grammar), I hope to outsource another task to him: visiting my in-laws. It´s a tough job, but someone has to do it. I´ve given him an incentive: He can help himself to any goodies my mother-in-law cooks -- as long as he remembers to send me 80 percent.

As you can see, outsourcing does have some benefits. In the long run, it could improve many products and services. America has been quick to exploit free trade and the global economy -- you can find American products almost everywhere -- and it´s only fair that some of the developing countries do, too. Perhaps it will bring a little balance to the world, help narrow the gap between rich and poor countries, give a few more Indians the opportunity to make my life easier.

American workers should have faith that more jobs will be created here, that they won´t have to run across the border to Mexico. After all, the ingenuity that made America what it is today can never be outsourced.