"Nominally, there is one executive for every eight federal employees, a ratio that would bankrupt many private industries"

This quote by Martin L. Gross is referring to the number of executives in the federal government compared to the number of workers. Gross is suggesting that the ratio of one executive for every 8 federal workers is too high and would be unsustainable in the private sector. He is suggesting that the federal government is overstaffed with executives, which the economic sector would not be able to pay for such a high ratio. This could be due to the reality that the federal government is not subject to the exact same monetary restraints as the economic sector, and for that reason can pay for to have more executives than would be practical in the economic sector. Gross is suggesting that the federal government must be more mindful of its costs and minimize the number of executives in order to be more economically responsible.