I started into this doorstopper and got to about page 100 but I would be lying if I claimed to understand much of it to that point. So I took a break to read something lighter before going further. But I seldom give up on a book, and did finish it in stages between reading snippets from my late mother’s daily diary which she kept writing over many years from 1954 to 1984. I am missing many and just recently discovered 15 years worth.
The author is the well-known former Governor of of the Bank of Canada (2008-2013), and the Bank of England (2013-2019) and is now with Brookfield Asset Management, an eco-friendly investment vehicle. He was also the Chairman of the then new Financial Stability Board following the 2007-8 crisis. Some of my friends believe that he will become the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, after Justin Trudeau implodes in the upcoming election.
After reading another 110 pages, I knew more about the unseen causes of the 2007-08 financial crisis, and even recognized many of the acronyms that are used in the macroeconomics field. And I could appreciate and understand most of the efforts being developed to guard against it happening again. But to pretend that I understood most of the wordy erudite language would still be a lie.
The discussion of the Covid-19 pandemic and the varied response to it was relatively easy to understand and the varied ways of putting a cost on a life was fascinating. I was quite familiar with the concept of Quality Adjusted Life years, but the author discusses it’s limitations as well. Written and published in 2021, apparently when Covid lockdowns were still being widely applied, and before widespread vaccination programs were even foreseen, much of the discussion about the possible reopening after Covid seems almost irrelevant now. “Scientists have made a business of warning the world of high-impact events from pandemics to meteor flares to volcanic eruptions. Humanity has made a business of ignoring them.”
The two chapters on the climate crisis are more understandable to me than the rest of the book. In them, he shows how far we are from achieving the goals of the Paris agreement, and the shrinking time line we have to achieve any meaningful goals. He clearly favours carbon taxes over cap and trade schemes and the need for predictability. But even in those chapters, several graphs seemed rather meaningless to me.
The section on the theories and qualities of effective leadership in times of crisis draws on extensive literature but seems erudite and almost entirely theoretical. There is also a hint of self-congratulation. He spends many pages devoted to decisions made by the Bank Of England when he was Governor, doling out pithy bits of advice on how to lead effectively. All of his readers will know of his several leadership roles, and he may as well be describing himself as the model leader. To be fair, he does admit to making leadership mistakes while at the bank, and perhaps rightly claims that daily meditation and yoga help to keep him focused and humble. And In the final chapter, he discusses the insignificance of any one life.
The 35-page chapter on How Purposeful Companies Create Value highlights the different roles of shareholders and stakeholders in different jurisdictions and goes some way to explaining why so many large companies are registered in Delaware, but is detailed, wordy, and optimistic, given the short time frame that rules the electoral cycle for most politicians, although pressure from the public may force them to change that.
In Investing in Value(s), Carney once again confused me with a plethora of acronyms surrounding Environmental, Social and Governance measurements for firms, their many divergent ways of being measured, and the caution needed to interpret them, and not the least confusing were the charts.
The 65 page penultimate chapter, How Canada Can Build Value For All, is a little easier to understand than most of the book, except for the charts and grafts. It reads like a wordy future political platform that needs to be simplified and put into slogans. The author is fond of point forms and enumerations to wax eloquent on a host of problems.
I have been critical of this book in this review, but I greatly admire the author -his undoubted brilliance, integrity, altruism, perspective, critical thinking and, yes, his values. I was forewarned that this would be a tough read, but I didn’t really appreciate how tough. But I would probably vote for him if he ever entered politics.
7/10
Thanks, Ian A.
The Passionate Reader 