It is really nice to find an intelligent discussion here, between people who are at least trying to listen to each other.

On Lisa's original question.  Why is the government inefficient except in military manners?  If they do military stuff right, they should be able to do it in other areas too.  Actually, the military has inefficient and incompetent areas too, like governments and private compamies.  Also, are state and local governments also inefficient? 

GM has seen its collapse coming for a long while; that is why they set up Saturn -- they knew they had to try something new.  But the rest of GM did not like  Saturn, so they starved it  of resources.  They had a generation or two to reverse the downward path they were on, and they lacked the imagination and guts to do it.

The financial industry managed to make a lot of money and then somehow lose it, and endangered the world financial system in the process. 

Our health care, dominated by private companies and the congressmen they have bought, manages to spend almost one of five dollars we spend.  Other affluent countries spend more like one of every ten dollars on health, and their people live longer.  This is hardly efficient, although from a business perspective they are very successful. 

Are all governments inefficient, or just our federal government?  How about the governments of other countries?

Personally, I think our government is inefficient in some areas and efficient in others.  Generalizations won't do; you have to look at each area and see what is going on.  The inefficient areas need to be fixed, but most should not be shut down.  And a  bit of paranoia -- people who feel the government is too big or inefficient or that government is the problem have a hard time making their case if the government does things well, but a much easier case if the government is inefficient or incompetent.