'Egregious in its Misuse of Data'

Jeff Sachs is unhappy with the WSJ's editorial page (and not for the first time):

Wall Street Journal: Get a Fact Checker, by Jeffrey Sachs: ...I ... want to talk about fact checking. The [Wall Street] Journal editorial board is egregious in its misuse of data. It writes what it wants without fact checking. Where is the journalistic profession to call them out?

There are two editorial pieces this weekend of note. The story on "Europe's Bankrupt Welfare State" asserts that, "the European way of welfare is bankrupt." This is easy to check. Look at European countries with large welfare states, and see how they are doing in terms of debt, deficits, unemployment, and other indicators of "bankruptcy." I do this in Table 1 here comparing the US with Europe's five leading welfare states: the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Germany. ...

Looking at Table 1..., the conclusion is simple. The European welfare states tax and spend more than the US as a percent of GDP, yet also have lower budget deficits as a share of GDP, lower debt-GDP ratios, and lower unemployment rates. Note that the government sectors of Norway and Sweden have net assets rather than net debt. Some bankruptcy!

The second comment is by editorial board member Holman Jenkins, Jr. Mr. Jenkins tries to debunk global warming by writing that "the warmest year on record globally is still 1998 and no trend has been apparent globally since then."

His claim is both false and irrelevant. It is false because most data point to more recent years as being warmer than 1998. ... The claim is also irrelevant, since 1998 was an exceptionally strong El Nino (essentially, a tilt of Pacific warm water towards the west coast of Latin America). ... Comparing subsequent years to a very strong El Nino year mixes up trends and inter-annual variability. ...

The Wall Street Journal editors have failed to notice that even the climate skeptics have come around. ...

The Wall Street Journal editorial board needs a fact checker plain and simple. It's a major paper, with excellent news coverage, and should not destroy its integrity by an editorial board that flouts the basic process of checking the facts.