News Flash: Mark Carney named next head of the Bank of England

In a press conference Monday morning, Mark Carney said: “I’m honoured to accept this important and demanding role.”

Carney said he would be taking on the biggest challenge going when he heads up the British central bank next year. (Mark Carney, speaking at a press conference, Monday, November 26, 2012 at which he announced his acceptance of the position of Governor of the Bank of England.)
Leave it to others to parse his motivations:

• a detour to eventually become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, after his five-year stint at the helm of the Bank of England.
• a return to his wife's home country, where he also studied for his Masters and Doctorate in Economics at Oxford
• a step onto the global stage, to test his professional, intellectual and diplomatic mettle
• boredom with his current position as Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Canada generally.....

Suffice it to say that Mr. Carney is entering one of the hotest political posts at a time when Great Britain is struggling with both debt/deficit and also austerity measures not exactly tolerable to many Britons. He will have to calm those domestic waters with a balanced, and diplomatic presentation of alternatives for the Cameron Conservative government to consider, and he will have his own powers to implement as Governor.
Replacing Mr. Carney at the Bank of Canada, while somewhat difficult given his platinum reputation that could serve as an unwelcome foil for his successor, will require considerable insight and acumen from those responsible for the recommendation.
Watching the arc of his international career will be millions of Canadians whose pride will mount that arc with his every speech, challenge met and overcome, and retrospective following his five-year appointment. And then, who knows what the political landscape will be in Canada and around the world. Who knows if he might not be suitably positioned, in five years, to succeed Madame Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund?
Should the western world move finally out of the fiscal crisis that has beset too many of its governments since 2008, and should Mr. Carney be able to demonstrate that he has played a significant and positive role in that move forward, as indicated by dropping unemployment rates, in the leading countries including Great Britain, increased economic growth and enhanced stability in the financial markets, he will be more that admirably positioned to accept whatever offers are forthcoming, and from this desk, the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada would not likely be among his top choices.

Mark Carney named next head of the Bank of England

By Scott Hamilton and Svenja O'Donnell, Bloomberg News, in National Post, November 26, 2012
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney was unexpectedly appointed as the next head of the Bank of England, succeeding Mervyn King.
Carney, 47, takes the helm of a 318-year-old institution that’s preparing to become the most powerful central bank in the world as it absorbs broad new powers to oversee the financial system and prevent another crisis. He’ll also have to guide the Monetary Policy Committee as it implements unconventional tools to stoke a recovery and battles to protect the inflation-fighting credibility earned since it won independence in 1997.
In a press conference Monday morning, Mark Carney said: “I’m honoured to accept this important and demanding role.”
Carney said he would be taking on the biggest challenge going when he heads up the British central bank next year.
“I’m going to where the challenges are greatest,” Carney the Ottawa news conference, adding he would not be moving if he did not feel the Canadian financial system was in top shape.
“We have a system that works very well. It’s been tested under the biggest economic shock and financial shock that any of us will ever see in our lifetime, and it has passed that test.
“I have served to the best of my abilities and am humbled by the support I have received from my colleagues at the Bank of Canada and Canadians,” he said.
“It was a difficult decision, but I think it was the right decision.”