Talibans are a thousand times more cost-efficient than NATO troops

This is probably not as much merit of the Taliban as demerit of NATO but, in any case, the cost of each insurgent killed by US or other NATO troops is a thousand times of what costs the Taliban to kill each Western Imperial soldier.

Yes, a thousand times. Sounds a lot? It is a lot.

The reasons are detailed in an article at Kabul Press by Matthew Nasuti (found via Naked Capitalism):

• Half billion dollars allocated to provide electricity to Kandahar, in order to create an illusion of progress in the hope of winning hearts and minds. 
• Each fuel gallon (c. 4.2 liters) imported by NATO to Afghanistan costs more than $300.
• Widespread corruption and fraud in hiring contractors naturally increases the costs. But in this case by a lot!
• Private services to the army (150,000 civilian personnel) amount to almost as if each soldier would have his/her own private servant, a level of luxury never seen in warfare - not even in the times slavery was common (anyhow slaves were almost at no cost). 

Overall it adds up to a total waste of resources that makes the whole Afghanistan campaign economically unsustainable. 

However this is exactly the kind of "business" that feeds the Military-Industrial Complex: a pointless hyper-expensive war that feeds private wallets at the expense of the taxpayer, not just US taxpayers but also Canadian and European ones.

Meanwhile critically important public services are being sacrificed to this Moloch or War and Plunder. But don't get me wrong: they are not plundering Afghanistan as much as they are plundering us.

It's the sign of the times: statesmen have been replaced by commercial agents and the whole state has been privatized. No civilization can withstand that for long.