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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

#251

Post by marxidad »

OliverJones wrote: post #242

I love how this article portrays Mr. Ballmer as a wide eyed innocent. “I mean it’s funny, but I didn’t realize all these not-for-profits were in a sense almost like government contractors.” Well, yeah. Antipoverty nonprofit agencies run programs like Head Start and handle all sorts of charity operations. Adoption agencies, training programs, and on and on. A key skill for nonprofit comptrollers is knowing how to get…

Or how about this gem: “If you look at these tax deductions for employer-provided health or for state and local taxes or mortgage-interest deductions, they’re really subsidies to the affluent, which I guess I hadn’t thought about them.”

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

#253

Post by prance »

> Well, let’s look at that. People who work in schools, higher ed, public institutions of education — they are government employees.” And they represent almost half of the 24 million, his data shows.

> “And you say, O.K., what are the other big blocks?” Mr. Ballmer continued. “Well, active-duty military, war fighters. Government hospitals. Really? I didn’t know that.”

I'm really surprised if this really surprised him. I mean, the ex-CEO of one of the most powerful and influential corporates on Earth didn't know that soldiers, public teachers, medical personnel etc. are employed by government?? If that's true, I don't even know what to say. I would find it ridiculous, laughable, if it wasn't so sad.

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

#254

Post by hNewsLover99 »

Talk about your fluff pieces!

Sorkin's article ignores Ballmer's billion-dollar tax dodge... er, break... for buying a basketball team.* Ballmer should revise his boast from "paid for with pre-tax dollars" to "paid for with "shamefully un-taxed dollars."

Interesting terms that don't show up when Googling Ballmer's site (at least as of today...)

tax expenditure tax shelter estate tax good will sports team basketball

             site:usafacts.org
And so much for the "already taxed" argument by Trump's billionaire class (and their gullible working-class sycophants) against the estate tax. How much supposedly already-income-taxed dollars of wealth will soon escape estate taxes? And how much will all of these tax expenditures add to working and middle class taxes and the national debt?

Now that, Mr. Sorkin, would be an interesting article.

* Check out "Steve Ballmer Gets Billion-Dollar Tax Write-Off For Being Basketball Baron" at https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/27/0237200/steve-ballme...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_expenditure

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

#255

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

1wheel wrote: post #179
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…

The NBA stopped posting the Sport Vu data early last year - I don't think it is coming back.

Do you have an article describing why they did that? I can't find one.

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

#256

Post by lifeformed »

prance wrote: post #253

> Well, let’s look at that. People who work in schools, higher ed, public institutions of education — they are government employees.” And they represent almost half of the 24 million, his data shows. > “And you say, O.K., what are the other big blocks?” Mr. Ballmer continued. “Well, active-duty military, war fighters. Government hospitals. Really? I didn’t know that.” I'm really surprised if this really surprised him…

I think he was surprised at the scale, not that those groups counted as gov't.

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

#257

Post by grogenaut »

justin66 wrote: post #116
grogenaut wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can't track their basic budget how can they be fiscally responsible? Small govt's don't have the luxury of just printing more money.

Do you believe all local governments are fiscally responsible?

No but I do believe they have a harder time going into debt.

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

#258

Post by jedberg »

moomin wrote: post #143
jedberg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COOs don't make good CEOs in general. They are great at executing someone else's vision, but not great at coming up with one on their own.

I'm not saying Microsoft didn't need a change by the end of Ballmer's reign, but it is seriously underrated. Yes there were many mis-steps, especially in the consumer space, but he never put a foot wrong in the enterprise space and got a lock few would have credited would be possible with a Windows-server-only strategy.

Ballmer did a great job keeping the ship going for sure. He just failed to turn into the wind. :)

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

#259

Post by Forbo »

jnty wrote: post #243
barking wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like jumpcrisscross said. Ideally, where every euro of taxpayers' money goes should be a matter of public record.

I doubt that that's what you actually think. For example, I doubt you want me to be able to ask the government how much money was spent on impotence medication for you. There's a trade-off to be made regarding personal privacy. Why do you think that trade-off should be made against certain groups of people?

You can have transparency and privacy, they are not mutually exclusive in this case. Government spent X amount of money on Y number of prescriptions for medication Z. You can determine if there needs to be further auditing if Y exceeds the projected number of prescriptions based on prevalence of conditions.

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

#260

Post by 24gttghh »

foxhedgehog wrote: post #217
24gttghh wrote: post #206

>With an unlimited budget, he went about hiring a team of researchers in Seattle and made a grant to the University of Pennsylvania to help his staff put the information together. Altogether, he has spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants. $10 million spent so far just trying to figure out what the collective governments in the US is spending money on. Is this an argument for privatization or a…

$!0M relative to the size of the federal budget is infinitesimal.

Not to me or to your average taxpayer though. And, if it's truly not a big deal to the feds, this is data they should compile themselves.
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