I beg your pardon but I categorically disagree with you that US consumers drive the world's economy, this may be applicable during 70's until 90's but not now. Most US companies now are relying into emerging markets like Latin America, Asean, China, India, etc for futher consumer growth -- as the growth in North American region and European regions were already saturated. It is saturated not because of layoffs but because it reached the peak and less headroom for consumer growth.
Going back about outsourcing, most company do outsource because it will make their bottom line more solid and be able to focus on their on the core valuable business.Just take for example Apple, US engineers are the ones designing and innovate their core products but their high-volume manufacturing are outsource to China; since China is a manufacturing powerhouse and more efficient in manufacturing not just because of a lower labor cost but manufacturing is their forte due to economy of scale.
Also, remember that US companies earn more due to outsourcing. Large US IT services outsourcing companies like HP, IBM, Accenture are themselves brings value to US because they earned more on this business.
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
As to your first point, it is political today. Companies used to outsource jobs overseas simply because of smaller wage costs. Today they are outsourcing jobs due to environmental regulations being pushed by extremists claiming to "save the planet". If we want to save the planet, why are we moving jobs to countries that have almost NO environmental regulations? Even if we think it is good to have these regulations, we have to admit they are political by definition. I do think we need to treat our planet better, but I recognize that when companies are forced to close factories due to government regulations, that is a political decision that forced the business decision. I am sure there are still jobs being lost to greedy business leaders, but that is no longer the only cause.
Sigh, if only I had a magic wand from one of those characters in the very popular magic books and movies, I could cast a spell to make everyone get along, everyone to have enough to eat, and everyone to work hard. Sadly human nature prevents that sort of thing from every really happening (peace and tranquility, not magic of course!)