Tempestade Cerebral

Para quem não sabe, o termo benchmarking caracteriza o processo de avaliação e adaptação das melhores práticas de empresas de sucesso, com a finalidade de introduzir melhorias na organização. Esta "organização" podia ser o Estado português. Um dos casos de sucesso é a Nova Zelândia (meus destaques) [link via John Ray]:

"New Zealand’s per capita income in the period prior to the late 1950s was right around number three in the world, behind the United States and Canada. But by 1984, its per capita income had sunk to 27th in the world, alongside Portugal and Turkey.
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When a reform government was elected in 1984, it identified three problems: too much spending, too much taxing and too much government.
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We achieved an overall reduction of 66 percent in the size of government, measured by the number of employees. The government’s share of GDP dropped from 44 to 27 percent. We were now running surpluses, and we established a policy never to leave dollars on the table: We knew that if we didn’t get rid of this money, some clown would spend it. So we used most of the surplus to pay off debt, and debt went from 63 percent down to 17 percent of GDP. We used the remainder of the surplus each year for tax relief. We reduced income tax rates by half and eliminated incidental taxes. As a result of these policies, revenue increased by 20 percent. Yes, Ronald Reagan was right: lower tax rates do produce more revenue.
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New Zealand had an education system that was failing as well. It was failing about 30 percent of its children - especially those in lower socio-economic areas. We had put more and more money into education for 20 years, and achieved worse and worse results."

O artigo é sobre impostos, educação, privatizações, subsídios agrícolas, obras públicas, burocracia, gestores públicos, etc.

Senhores políticos, até nem perdem muito tempo a ler... Trata-se de um pequeno texto: o equivalente a 6 páginas!!!