That's not a rude awakening. As long as one's invested in change, that's a speed bump. Businesses can't outsource if outsourcing is severely curtailed by policy

That's not a rude awakening. As long as one's invested in change, that's a speed bump. Businesses can't outsource if outsourcing is severely curtailed by policy or law. Leaders, legislators, policymakers -- they have knobs and dials to turn on this thing. Indeed, leaders fiddling with knobs is what got us here in the first place. In South Korea in the 2nd half of the 20th century, not long ago, capital flight was severely restricted -- punishable by death in some cases! I'm not close to saying we do that here; I'm just saying we have tools. Like some other commenters, and many thousands more in the broader discourse, you're speaking from a position of "this is the way things are and they can't be changed, so there". My main point isn't to argue for this or that particular policy. My main point is that the world can be different. People motivated to change it will find a way to do so. In matters like these, arguments for economic determinism are borderline defeatist.