Concept

Counterfactual Success

Counterfactual success—disasters avoided—is hard to politicize and hard to feel. Humans remember warnings more vividly than prevented failures. A forecast that helped policymakers prepare liquidity facilities or stress tests can still feel, to the public, like an error if the movie-script crisis did not arrive. Leadership that wants trust after a forecast era must narrate invisible safeguards without sounding defensive— not "be grateful," but "here is what did not break and who still paid while it held."