international outsourcing
Point 2, Steve, is made in the Economic Report of the President, though without that China graph, which sounds compelling. Some of the decline perhaps is from international outsourcing, but more of it is just improved productivity.

Incidentally, has everyone forgotten in the past year that the term "outsourcing" has been widely used for a long time to refer to a company hiring another company to do tasks it had previously performed itself? The term seems suddenly to have as its primary meaning the movement of jobs from one country to another, often performed by the same company as did them before. To ease my whiplash, I'm trying to prepend the adjective "international" when I use the word in its new manner.

Update Here we go: The procuring of services or products, such as the parts used in manufacturing a motor vehicle, from an outside supplier or manufacturer in order to cut costs. Now "outside" means "outside the country" rather than "outside the company".
- posted by dWj @ 12:02 PM