$ 447 billion. Add it all up: the tax cuts, the increased spending, and increased borrowing—and that is what it will take to get the economy back on its feet, according to President Obama.

If it were only so easy.

America’s economic problems are far beyond what a few measly hundred billion can paper over.

Consider the case of Apple Inc. What other company better symbolizes American business prowess? Weighing in at an impressive $350 billion, it is the most valuable company in the world—eclipsing even much-loathed oil giant ExxonMobil.

But how much does this American manufacturer really help America’s economy? Maybe not as much as you think.

Consider the iPhone, one of the hottest products ever produced by Apple. By the end of 2009, the company had sold over 25 million units (at a price of $500 to $600 each). Meanwhile, the cost to produce each phone, according to Martin Hart-Landsberg, roughly hovered around $200. That means Apple raked in a cool $8.7 billion.

Such massive profits may sound like a good thing, but at what cost did they come?

It might shock you to learn that despite its 50,000 American employees, at its core, Apple really isn’t an American company anymore. And it isn’t really a manufacturer either.

Most people don’t realize that the vast majority of iPhone components are manufactured in other countries. Very little is really “made in America.” The display module, touch screen and flash memory are all engineered and made by Japanese workers. The application processor is made in Korea. The camera, gps receiver and a host of other components were designed and produced in Germany.

The iPhone isn’t even assembled in America. The assembly is managed by a Taiwanese company, which uses factories in China to put it all together.

The result: a whole lot fewer jobs in America than there could be.

Yes, Apple employs thousands of salespeople, technicians and other support staff. It even employs scientists and engineers, and some of these people make innovations and value-added products that help increase the collective wealth of America. But how much of Apple is actually designed for profiting from existing American wealth? Is it a net plus or minus?

There was a time not long ago when America was a major technology manufacturing hub. But today, not only are the jobs overseas, but increasingly, so are the profits made from American consumers.

More dangerously though, it is the loss of technological leadership that should worry America.

Over the past couple of decades, U.S. companies have relentlessly pursued short-term profit maximization over long-term sustainability. Now experts are worried that the chronic outsourcing of manufacturing has “left U.S. industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy” (Forbes, August 17).

“[T]he decline of manufacturing in a region sets off a chain reaction,” writes Gary Pisano and Willy Shih in the Harvard Business Review. “Once manufacturing is outsourced, process-engineering expertise can’t be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. Without process-engineering capabilities, companies find it increasingly difficult to conduct advanced research on next-generation process technologies. Without the ability to develop such new processes, they find they can no longer develop new products. In the long term, then, an economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate.”

Sadly, many famous American businesses have already lost the ability to manufacture their products altogether. They have become nothing but hollow shell companies that just slap their label on products built by other people in other countries. And as Pisano and Shih note, that means America is losing its ability to innovate and develop new technologies.

Forbes magazine recounts the story of Dell, and how this company made the decision to outsource, piece by piece, the manufacturing of one component after another.

At first, everything seemed great. Each time Dell farmed out another piece to a lower priced manufacturer, its profitability would rise. The company made more money. The stock price went up. And the executives got bigger bonuses.

So the outsourcing intensified.

But then something unforeseen happened. Eventually, it got to the point where Dell didn’t really make computers at all anymore. Now the company and stockholders are waking up to the realization that outsourcing manufacturing to future competitors might not have been such a good idea.

But now, of course, it is probably too late.

Dell became reliant on a foreign company to make its products. Now, that foreign company is making its own computers to compete directly with Dell—but because the competitor is the one actually manufacturing the computers, it can sell them for 20 percent less.

When Dell shipped all its jobs overseas and outsourced its manufacturing, it didn’t know it, but it outsourced its future too. A decade later, with profits constricting and its share price languishing, people are finally wondering what went wrong.

But Dell and Apple are far from alone. All kinds of American businesses could no longer manufacture their products in America even if they wanted to. The Forbes article, titled “Why Amazon Can’t Make a Kindle in the USA,” highlights what it calls “a frighteningly long list” of industries that are already lost to the U.S.—and an even greater list of industries that are threatened.

The problem is widespread, and there is no easy fix.

The outsourcing is entrenched for a very simple reason. It is more profitable to manufacture overseas than it is in America. Until that changes—until America becomes a better place for business—the jobs will not return.

Until then, American manufacturers will continue to move operations overseas, and America’s jobs problem will get worse.

On August 24, the Department of Justice and agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided the manufacturing facilities of the world-renowned Gibson Guitar company. Government officials confiscated half a million dollars’ worth of supplies, virtually shutting the company down.

Why? Because Gibson purchased ebony and rosewood guitar fingerboards (endangered trees that the Indian government manages) from an Indian supplier.

Note: This is not against U.S. law. Also note: The Indian government has issued no complaint about Gibson.

The Department of Justice and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attacked Gibson Guitar on suspicion that Gibson had violated Indian law! It was probably at the behest of some environmentalist group.

This is just the latest example of how onerous it is becoming to do business in the U.S. In California, land cannot be developed because the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly could be impacted. Cement factories and oil refineries cannot be permitted because of global warming scares (so the factories open in Mexico and China). In other states, unions and prevailing wage laws make businesses less competitive (so Polaris moves jobs outside the U.S.). Government indebtedness forces tax rates higher (and makes companies weaker).

And now the few remaining profitable U.S. manufacturers apparently have to make sure they comply with the laws of every country in the world before they can do business in America—or else they run the risk of invasion by the doj and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

So as America’s leaders borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from countries like China to stimulate the economy again, and the recovery fails again, remember that your stimulus dollars really are hard at work—just not in America.

China must be laughing all the way to the bank.