The Annoying Mysterious Round Trip Booking Rule for International Travel

There is some rule, and I have never quite known if it is a regulation, law, or international treaty, that seems to require travelers to have a return ticket to their home country unless they have some form of residency where they are traveling to. I have noticed that Americans and US based airlines are the most anal about it, which has always made me feel like it is a corporate rig for cash.
The apparent purpose of the mysterious condition is this: If an traveler goes to a foreign country and spends all his cash on a tourist visa, or gets robbed, or has some catastrophic attack on his bank account back home, they at least they can be repatriated even if they are out of food and money for a hotel room.
What this does is force travelers who like to be flexible, are required to be flexible by circumstances, or who want to travel elsewhere from their first destination but don't know the date perhaps, or where they might go from there etc., to create an elaborate return itinerary to satisfy some airline desk agent who thinks they look indigent, and essentially, to buy a second ticket just to leave their country. This makes me feel like a prisoner of my birth land, and I resent that, especially when it plays into the hands of corporations, who will sometimes gouge you by making you buy a ticket at the airport. I t also can create havoc for if say, you were going to fly to a country and drive back.. they want you to have some sort of bus ticket, ferry ticket etc. to satisfy them, otherwise you gotto buy a ticket, maybe with a non-refundable fee attached, to meet a government requirement that inconveniences perhaps 10 people for every 1 it is intended to help. It's also an immigration control of sorts I believe. Lot's of people go to foreign countries to stay perhaps longer than their visa will allow, and this is supposed top be an implication that you won't do that since your return date has to be prior to the termination of a traditional tourist visa, which ranges from 10 days to 6 months in most countries, but it does a poor job of that.. for one, you can miss your return flight, cancel it, or just fake one, and stay there if you wish until that country's immigration agency catches up with you. Meanwhile, others are treated a bit like prisoners of their country in some weird version of Napoleonic Law, where you pay to leave.
I asked a lawyer friend who works in immigration to clarify this for me, but never heard back from him. I know that enforcement is inconsistent. It feels like the harder I work to get a return itinerary, they less likely they are to ask me for it. The Airline industry is so screwed up that sometimes one way flight cost more than round trips, but I still feel absurd buying one when I know I won't be using it. almost every Country, from China to New Zealand, has conditions whereby you can prove that you have sufficient funds in your bank account, say 100 dollars per traveler per day, and avoid paying these fees just by providing a bank statement, but the airlines are like gatekeepers, they won{t let you on the flight until you meet their conditions about the return flight... return to sender... your ass belongs to Uncle Sam, and you are stuck in his 3 million square mile prison until you can prove otherwise.
I have done extensive Internet searching and have turned up very little on this. I have asked travel agents, and they just know, or want to know,t hat you have to buy return trip tickets. I have had this discussion in Japan, the US, and a few other places, but no one ever know more..
I'll publish more as I learn more.

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