by Dan Fournier, Inconvenient Truths:
Introduction
Mark Carney has long been seen as a rich elite banker and staunch globalist, receiving a fair amount of criticism over the years for his various deeds.
Such rhetoric has certainly increased over the past few months as he’s become front and center in Canadian politics.
While the average Canadian has a rudimentary perspective on Carney – including how he’s a savvy economist and former central bank governor, few are aware of his extensive list of questionable deeds, his true or underlying motivations, and louche allegiances.
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This exposition will, therefore, attempt to fill the gap by revealing the obscure side of this enigmatic figure who has just become Canada’s 24th Prime Minister without even holding a seat as a Member of Parliament nor obtaining a single vote in a nation-wide election.
Attending Harvard & Oxford and his Early days at Goldman Sachs
In 1984 at the age of 18, Mark Carney left his home base in Edmonton to attend Harvard University on a partial scholarship.
“He intended to study English literature and math. But while attending lectures by the Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith, he found a new interest and eventually majored in economics, graduating with high honours,” states Julia Belluz from Reader’s Digest Canada.
John Kenneth Galbraith was one of the most widely read economists in the United States and was even an advisor to John F. Kennedy. Such a prominent figure would have undoubtedly left an indelible impression on the young Carney who was known around campus for being a bright and disciplined student.
But with elevated costs for Harvard, Carney needed to take time off to build up his tuition fund before returning, and eventually graduating with high honours earning his Bachelors degree in Economics in 1988.
The high cost of his U.S. education drove him to his first job as an analyst in the credit department for Goldman Sachs in 1989, progressively rising through the ranks in their London and Tokyo offices.
A few years later in 1991, the 26-year old Carney pursued his post-graduate studies at the University of Oxford, earning his Masters at St. Peter’s College in 1993 and his doctorate from Nuffield College in 1995, both in economics.
It was at Oxford where Carney shaped his thinking on economic policy and where he also met and married his wife Diana Fox.
Cutting his teeth at Goldman Sachs
Upon earning his Ph.D from Oxford in 1995, Carney returned to Goldman Sachs working in London, New York, Boston, and eventually in Toronto.
He spent a total of 13 years at the investment banking firm, progressively holding more senior positions including co-head of sovereign risk (for Europe, Africa and the Middle East), Executive Director for emerging debt capital markets, and Managing Director for investment banking.
Of particular note, Carney gained experience in assisting post-apartheid South Africa’s integration into international bonds.
He also reportedly played a role in the 1998 Russian financial crisis which saw the nation default on its debt and its Central Bank suffer a fierce devaluation of their currency, the ruble.
At the time, Goldman Sachs earned tens of millions in fees as it was advising Russia on managing its sovereign debt, helping it to issue $1.25 billion in bonds. Though the debt practically became worthless by August due to the default, the investment bank said that its losses were “absolutely minimal.”
That being said, it remains unclear what direct involvement Mark Carney may have had in those two dealings.
There’s little doubt that during his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Carney developed key relationships with other prominent bankers, financiers, and other power players of high finance. Some of those figures and relationships will be referenced later in this post.
Governor of the Bank of Canada
Having left Goldman Sachs in 2003, Carney joined the Bank of Canada as co-Deputy Governor alongside David Longworth. And in October of the following year, he was appointed as Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Finance.
On October 4, 2007, Carney was announced as the next Governor of the Bank of Canada.
During his five-year tenure as Governor for the Bank of Canada commencing in early 2008, Mark Carney oversaw monetary policy at the central bank which entailed a significant expansion in credit amidst a general lack of trust in the banking sector following the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis.
While he kept interest rates low to try to offset financial ills plaguing the Canadian economy, Carney also pursued unprecedented stimulus policies in addition to fostering a broader alignment with international banking outfits such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
It is largely with the latter, the BIS – the central bank of central banks, with whom Carney conspired to pursue monetary policies and green banking schemes which have led to, and further exacerbated Canada’s financial predicament. Some of these, lesser-known, machinations will be further outlined and examined below.
It should also be emphasised that during his stint as Governor of the Bank of Canada, Carney actually opposed a proposal called the Volcker rule which sought to prevent deposit-taking banks and firms from making bets with their own accounts. This was on the coat tails of the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis which caused outrage and saw large investment banks such as Lehman Brothers go bust due to highly speculative bets. One would think that as Governor for the central bank of Canada, Carney would have taken a more prudent and reasoned approach, wanting to prevent such follies from happening again; but instead, he stubbornly refused to support the Volcker rule – in what can only be interpreted as further protecting his banking buddies on Wall Street and the City of London.
Top Secret Basel Banking
Alongside other member central bank governors of the BIS at their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, for their bi-monthly Basel Committee meetings, Carney attended no less than about 60 meetings (from 2008 to 2013) with his international counterparts during his tenure as the Governor for the Bank of Canada.
All of these have been secretive meetings for which not even Canadian elected officials (Members of Parliament) nor appointed officials (Senators) have been privy to. Neither the contents nor the minutes of these meetings are made available to the public, a criticism astutely noted by Australian Senator Gerard Rennick.
What remains quite apparent, however, is that, as per the BIS’ own words, the main purpose of these meetings has always been to build consensus among member central banks. In other words, aligning central bank monetary policies with those of the private international banking cartel takes precedence and priority over members’ respective national interests.
Such policies have been readily apparent given Carney’s various initiatives over the years – not only at the Bank of Canada, but through a multitude of other key roles and positions he has held over the years, as will be further expanded upon below.
Fox Guarding the Hen House (Bank of England, BIS & FSB)
Too big to fail
Mark Carney was appointed as Chairman to the Basel-based FSB on November 4, 2011 – coincidentally the same day in which the body published a list of 29 banks that were considered sufficiently large as to pose a risk to the global economy should they fail.
These are known as global systemically important financial institutions (G-SIFIs) which basically means that they are a list of large banks (G-SIBs) and insurers that are considered “too big to fail.” The FSB updates the list annually with 2024 being the latest version available on their website.
“On the too big to fail point, it’s absolutely incumbent on us to be clear that we have all the tools in place to end too big to fail, and that we are making a lot of progress on it but we haven’t yet done it for the major institutions,” Carney discordantly stated years later in 2017.
Yet that “progress” of ending too big to fail never seems to manifest itself.
In order to avoid bankruptcy in mid-2023, banking giant Credit Suisse, deemed systemically important, received a CHF50bn ($53.7bn) lifeline (liquidity backstop) from the Swiss central bank which ultimately left bondholders high and dry following Switzerland’s decision to wipe out $17bn of debt as it was rescued by UBS with the latter itself receiving a CHF100bn lifeline in the deal.
Too big to jail
Lawyer and financial investigator John Titus’ 2017 documentary All the Plenary’s Men (see also here) not only revealed the extent to which the Bank for International Settlement (BIS)’ FSB helped to cover up for HSBC crimes (helping to launder billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels) following the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, but also Mark Carney’s role in ensuring the London-headquartered banking giant would not get prosecuted for its money laundering scandal by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the U.S. who had amassed a mammoth case against them.
Watch the following video from the 21:10 mark to see Carney at his best:
While the specifics of this particular case are rather complex, what must be retained is the fact that Carney was Chairman of the FSB when George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, sent the DOJ a letter not to prosecute; and, as Titus implies in his documentary, the FSB appears to have entered in secretive talks with the authorities in the U.S. stressing the premise that the banking giant could not be prosecuted due to its status of being systemically important. The prosecution of HSBC could lead to “very serious implications for financial and economic stability,” stated Osborne. And this was enough for the case to be dropped.
Due to its size and international reach, HSBC has always figured among the 29 G-SIB banks.
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