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

nytimes.com

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

#21

Post by MisterBastahrd »

kuyan wrote: post #15
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?

I took it to mean "third parties politicize CBO reports" rather than "CBO reports are created with ideological slants," because, well, that's the truth of the matter. You can't criticize a CBO forecast for being slightly inaccurate when politicians decide to change the parameters after the fact.

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

#22

Post by akcreek »

simplegeek wrote: post #14
scosman wrote: post #9

"“But come on, doesn’t the government take care of the poor, the sick, the old?” Mr. Ballmer recalled telling her." Too bad he never had a mentor who was an expert in philanthropy...

It seems his wife is.

He was sarcastically alluding to Bill Gates.

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

#23

Post by propman »

I am definitely very excited about this. Blanket statements like "government is too inefficient and such a waste" or "we need to raise more taxes to fix this problem" are statements that are irrefutable due to the convoluted nature of government. Now we can have a little more insight into what is efficient and what isn't. Also the opaqueness and division of data makes it difficult to make meaningful and economical decisions in a macro sense. I feel like there are lots of untapped opportunities to create services that involve gathering specific data that may also be sold anonymously to government in order to make better decisions along with helping customers.

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

#24

Post by WalterBright »

> “How many people work for government in the United States?” he asked, with the excitement of a child showing off a new toy, before displaying the answer. “Almost 24 million."

Directly, sure. Indirectly, a lot more. By indirectly, I mean companies that do government contract work.

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

#26

Post by guelo »

One of the hardest views of government budget to come by is per-category over time or per budget proposal. So you could see, for example, how much police funding has gone up or down over time. Or for different budget proposals the increase/decrease of each category compared to the current baseline. That data is never available when proposals are debated in Congress every year. The best you get in the news is when some interest group digs deep to find the most click baity possible shocking line item. I think even the politicians just vote based on party and don't really have any idea about the budget big picture. Hopefully this Ballmer will provide that kind of view.

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

#27

Post by hoodoof »

nimchimpsky wrote: post #18

m$ has got so much better since he left.

Seems to me lots of companies make $

Do they all get a derogatory psuedonym?

adob$ amaz$ face$ goog$ mailchim$ etc etc etc

or is the negativity reserved for M$

Suggesting there is something wrong with a software company because it makes money seems to be a blow in from 1990's militant open source philosophy and probably best left in the 1990s.

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

#28

Post by castratikron »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #13

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 ha…

Conservative AM radio, I can hear it now: "You know who the largest employer in the country is? It isn't WalMart, it's the US guberment!"
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