THE EFFICIENCY OF AMERICA?

So GM, with our millions, will close down Saab, whose cars are so far ahead of theirs -- in comfort, economy, efficiency and durability -- that there can be no real comparison. That's intelligent. The web news sites generally described Saabs as 'quirky'. By which I presume they mean that they were engineered to high standards and used better steel than any American car.

I don't know how you feel about our fabled business efficiency, but I have a distinct sense that it has long gone -- though I'm not sure that this is entirely the fault of American business. Surely it is (a) our general provincialism, (b) Homeland Security, and only then (c) our overpaid business executives.

Exempla: If you hire a car in Indianapolis, it costs $135 a week. I mean, that's what it actually costs. What you actually shell out is $381 for the same car for the same period. This is because of local and national fees, taxes and other hoo-ha. Checked out your air fares recently? How much are you paying to keep in existence all those worthy Transport flunkies who: damage the contents of your bags, question your lipstick, chuck your liquids, and ask you to spend an extra hour in the discomfort of airports? The quick answer is, a whole lot. Or perhaps you know why transfers of money within the same bank, from one branch to another, can take up to three weeks, when any terrorist anywhere can transfer it instantaneously from any part of the world to another? Here the culprit is the Government, whose concern about laundering drug money is far greater than its concern with the nose-sniffing that goes on at home. And then, of course, there is its concern that the money you might care to move could possibly be destined for those same terrorists. Or perhaps your pleasure lies in having uninterrupted use of your computer without having idiot messages from Hewlett-Packard telling you just how healthy your printer is, or having Microsoft turn it off in the middle of your sentence because, oops! it had to correct an error which Microsoft itself caused?

I have long wondered -- my father and grandfather having both been entrepreneurs and lone wolves -- just what 'businessmen' actually do, apart from infighting, nattering at the coffee-vending machine, and generally gumming up the works for their companies. The answer is: they devise new ways to soak you: with inefficient machines, with hidden charges, with buying and selling the future of the people who actually do work. One example will serve. ATMs saved the banks vast sums previously spent on tellers (as e-mail saved similar sums on communication). Great. Only have you noticed that the charges for using those machines has now risen from zero to 2.5% or more; or if used aboard (where's that? they wonder) to 7%?

I can't resist one more example of our 'efficiency': how much of your time is spent listening to the endless 'options' of voice-mail before you, if lucky, get to talk to a human being? Our health care is a bit like that too. You wait a long time and get no satisfaction.