'Alternative facts' a threat to US economic policymaking

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has an obvious problem with data that he doesn't like, as he showed on his first full day in office, by attacking the media for reporting accurately the size of the crowd that attended his inauguration. It should be no less obvious that this same reliance on "alternative facts" poses a severe threat in the realm of economic policymaking.

The number of people who attended the inauguration - far less than Mr Trump wanted to believe - could easily be inferred from the available evidence.…