In praise of efficiency

I've noticed a theme running through a number of my posts, and it has to do with efficiency. Health care in the U.S. is one of the most inefficient industries around, and the automobile industry isn't much better. In health care, we put up with the costs and inefficiencies because everyone is entitled to the highest quality health care. Except, of course, for the 47 million Americans with no health insurance, and the millions of others who get inadequate or substandard care, or who get no care at all even though they're insured, because they have a "pre-existing condition."

Cars are built they way they are because, well, they've always been built that way. Management and the United Auto Workers agreed to contracts over the decades without any serious thought about their long-term costs, because everyone involved was rewarded based on short-term results, not long-term planning. That's why Toyota and Honda can build small cars profitably in the U.S., but the U.S. automakers can't.

Our automakers are sliding toward bankruptcy. Our health care system is bankrupting the U.S. economy. The status quo is no longer acceptable, and we have to change it.