[zbyte64]

Choosing what kind of data to expose or research can be political. Simply releasing data on the # of regulations is helpful for only certain kinds of discussions:

* Who pushed or repealed the most regulations

* Who regulated what

* Correlating # of regulations to market performance

These are not bad discussions to have but has the consequence of shifting the discussion further away from "what makes a good regulation?" towards "how much regulation is too much?".

Data is data but it isn't all the data. What we choose to look at frames the political discussion.

[msellout]

A strategy for an executive to control the output of outside consultants is to sponsor a project and provide a filtered list of information sources. So long as the consultants only receive the appropriate data, their conclusions are predetermined. Internally, this creates the illusion of objectivity.