Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 273 posts

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#11

Post by hackuser »

taurath wrote: post #10

It sounds pretty great, but I'm very worried about what actually comes out of it given the media landscape. People will use the data in ways that benefit them - even the CBO's reports are highly politicized. If we can't start taking "real, true" data at face value and using it to drive actual policy again, this is just another drop in the bucket.

> even the CBO's reports are highly politicized

I'm pretty sure I've read about many CBO reports that disagreed with the party in power. What basis is there for saying they are highly politicized?

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#12

Post by hkmurakami »

nojvek wrote: post #3
pthreads wrote: post #2

I am very eager to see what's in store here when it goes live. If indeed it contains accurate, unbiased and factual data then it is a great project. And it is about time someone did it. I wish it was citizen funded instead of rich individuals (even if the intentions are good). But I will take what I can get for now.

I'll get excited when it comes out. What is in it for ballmer?

It struck me as philanthropy in a way.

And he confirms it.

* “We’re making philanthropic donations elsewhere — I think of this as another,” he said, referring to himself and his wife. “I don’t even deduct this for my taxes. I pay this with after-tax money, no pretax money, because I don’t want anybody being able to think that factors in. But I feel like it’s a civic contribution more than anything else.”

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#13

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

Oh this is fascinating. I can't wait for people to slice and dice this up and show all kinds of data and analysis. This reminds me of how the NBA opened up the data stores from Sport Vu analytics and other advanced statistics and how much we learned from it by all the people on the web looking at it and thinking about it, sorting it and analyzing it in many different ways to see things no one had seen before. That has to be good for our country.

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#15

Post by kuyan »

taurath wrote: post #10

It sounds pretty great, but I'm very worried about what actually comes out of it given the media landscape. People will use the data in ways that benefit them - even the CBO's reports are highly politicized. If we can't start taking "real, true" data at face value and using it to drive actual policy again, this is just another drop in the bucket.

> even the CBO's reports are highly politicized

Can you source that?

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#16

Post by donatj »

gumby wrote: post #4

I really never liked Ballmer, but I did love him for the Developers dance, and now, well, this is awesome. I hope he does it in a long-term sustainable way.

Funny and satirical as it is, [1] completely changed my opinion of Steve Ballmer for the positive.

> Steve Ballmer. You open the door to his enormous grinning face, and before you know it he’s in the hall handing over a bottle of something cheap (but with such confidence you don’t notice) and he’s giving you the handshake of your life. Then he’s in. Loving it. Loving the music. Loving the food and drink. He’s going up to everyone, saying hello. And after a while you realize he’s started balling “thanks for coming, great to see you man!” to your guests. By the end of the evening it’s his party and everybody had a great time. That’s Steve Ballmer.

https://medium.com/packt-publishing/how-to-be-like-steve-bal...

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#17

Post by stuartaxelowen »

aryehof wrote: post #8

The article mentions that the data shows a huge allocation of resources to education. Why is education publicly funded in the USA, and not left to market forces? Can't that be considered a "socialist" policy?

Because education is one of the foundations of a productive life, and we don't want to even further widen the gap between the rich and poor?

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#19

Post by castratikron »

aryehof wrote: post #8

The article mentions that the data shows a huge allocation of resources to education. Why is education publicly funded in the USA, and not left to market forces? Can't that be considered a "socialist" policy?

A public company generally cares about quarterly performance. A private company might have its sights as far as a few years out. However, with education it takes about 20 years to start seeing a return on investment. It just doesn't make sense to approach education from a business standpoint, both because the ROI is very low, and you need to have stability in education, you can't have someone like ITT Tech all of a sudden deciding to close their door to tens of thousands of students and leave with a bunch of useless credits that won't transfer.

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#20

Post by smt88 »

aryehof wrote: post #8

The article mentions that the data shows a huge allocation of resources to education. Why is education publicly funded in the USA, and not left to market forces? Can't that be considered a "socialist" policy?

Children are the primary beneficiaries of education. They aren't consumers choosing between different products. Their parents are able to choose where they go to school (to some extent), but there's always a free option -- as there should be.

The secondary beneficiaries of education are everyone else is society. Education has the highest ROI out of anything the government spends, and it keeps all of us safer and healthier.

Post reply on HN