Admittedly I'm taking a free hand at substituting nouns and verbs, like "produce" (which could be "product", but doesn't capture the service aspect so well), and probably should have simply used "input" and "output", for efficiency's sake (lol).
Seems there is a fundamental lack of understanding efficiency here. It is not at all necessary to compare ourselves to others to determine whether we are efficient. For example, multiple organizations with the same purpose are an example of inefficiency. Obama is now recognizing this, although people have been pointing it out for years. Corporations have a natural mechanism for discovering and correcting inefficiency, but government does not. In many cases it is actually in the best interest of government to be very inefficient. Large conflicts of interest there.
We've already had a similar discussion before in another thread. I noted then that I don't know the net effect that Romney had on the various companies he was involved with through Bain. However, it was Max who wrote that he would support Romney IF Gingrich's hit piece was actually accurate and representative. THAT'S what I find peculiar.
Well, here's the problem. For 100 years republicans all run on the idea of cutting government only to get elected and actually make it bigger. So if Romney actually is a serious competent guy who actually can effectively cut government, honestly, he would be the first guy in 100 years to do it. There is something appealing if he actually could do it.
This is why departments and divisions share best practices, which may already be known somewhere within the organization. If everyone is using their function's best practice, it could well be more efficient to "steal" a better one from the competition (if there is one, hence "comparative").
The picture that Gingrich paints is that Bain left destruction in its wake and that Bain was all about Bain and no one else. I'm not saying this is true, because I do not know enough about the sum of its operations to draw an informed conclusion. However, this is Gingrich's slant. The poster in question was actually drawn to this particular slant, such as it is. I think you're trying to be too clever by half in trying to justify it. Let's just agree that Max probably misspoke. At least I hope he did.
Really??? Come on man. If you cant look at the hundreds of articles which have come to surface over the last couple years on government waste, fraud, and abuse, and atleast come to the conclusion that there is areas where we can cut, then there is no helping you. Even the most far left economicst have to admit that Government is far less efficient then the private sector, that is basic economics.
BINGO!! The free market weeds out inefficiency through competition, when given enough time. There is no competition with government programs, and there is no need to remain solvent/profitable, as they can always simply get more money, so government just gets bigger and more inefficient when given enough time.