The competence of private companies in the U.S. shouldn't enrage you, that's one of the U.S.'s strengths.
That's a misleading and false generalization. You can't cherrypick one of the better prepared companies to make a statement about companies in general. Especially when there's nonsense all over the news about other companies like GameStop and Guitar Center claiming to be essential retail against all reason: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/coronavirus-esse....
H-E-B does a lot of things that are more benevolent than the kind of behavior that we're used to seeing from publicly-traded organizations and I can't help but wonder if the private ownership (truly private, as opposed to publicly-traded) has something to do with that.
H-E-B is one of the things I will really miss if I ever have to leave Texas. They're always there any time there is any kind of disaster, to provide relief. I've even heard that they treat their software engineers well (they bought Favor). They're really a one-of-a-kind company. I hope they never IPO.
I think I tentatively agree with you. I work for a company that was once privately held by a small number of owners who were primarily invested in that company. The impression I got from the old-timers was that management was a lot more generous back then. However, once they sold to a publicly traded firm, the squeeze started and it's never really stopped.
Sometimes an individual person can be satisfied with their wealth and position and focus on other things, and individuals can be influenced by moral and ethical ideas. The market, on the other hand, is like an amoral monster that's always eating but never satisfied.
See: Amazon. They are incompetent in many aspects of their business, but due to their sheer size that incompetence is shielded by their other investments.
An obvious example is that the president could have picked a highly competent, non-partisan manager as the head of his coronavirus team. Regardless of his competence, Vice President Pence is clearly a polarizing figure without a track record of dealing with crises of this scale.
This crisis could really benefit from a highly competent manager who could bust heads and sweep away bureaucratic hurdles. But that person would need to be someone honestly trusted by all stakeholders. We're seeing lots of actors maneuvering to gain ideological advantage even in the midst of these terrible events (shame on them). I don't even know if such a person exists any more but their non-existence would mean the US is in for serious trouble.
We could pay government employees more, but then voters would complain.
When you have to compete, you have to develop competence to survive. Only those that don't have to compete (monopolies) or those that survive despite incompetence (bailouts) are the exceptions.
The competence of private companies only really applies to a very narrow subset of corporations.