In Washington last week, I encountered amazement that the Bank of England is about to be run by a foreigner. This was not because of any contempt for Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who will soon succeed Sir Mervyn King, but because Americans could not imagine how a job so pivotal in the national psyche could be bestowed on someone with a different allegiance.
The Fed, though far from popular in a country constitutionally suspicious of central power, does have a mythic, incorruptible status. As a result, the chairman, Ben Bernanke, has a tiny (by banking standards) salary. Last year, he was paid $199,700. This is markedly less than the housing allowance of £250,000 a year that will be paid to Mr Carney, let alone the more than £600,000 a year which he will receive in salary. Does this vast difference in pay tell us something?
Mr Carney’s nationality is not much of a problem in Britain, since we do not regard Canadians as full-blooded foreigners, but I do think there is another issue.
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