Economist.com | OffshoringTHE debate over “offshoring”, a phenomenon unheard of a few years ago by many of those now loudly proclaiming its economic effects, is in “the percolating phase,” says Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, think-tank. It could, he adds, be “a potentially potent contributor” to the increasingly protectionist mood in the American capital.