It was an extreme illustration of a problem I swept under the rug in chapter 1, when I said the exclusive goal of forecasting should be accuracy and that would be the sole concern in this book. In reality, accuracy is often only one of many goals. Sometimes it is irrelevant. This unseemly truth is usually disguised but occasionally the mask falls, as it did when an analyst with the Banco Santander Brasil SA warned wealthy clients that Brazil’s stock market and currency would likely decline if a left-wing candidate continued her ascent in the polls. The candidate and her party were livid and
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