Beyond LaGarde

France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde, appears to be the most likely to succeed DSK as head of the IMF. Though there is some opposition.

Economist magazine is against the choice.

The magazine lists these potential candidates as strong choices:

Stanley Fischer, the governor of Israel’s central bank and former number two at the IMF.

Agustín Carstens, head of Mexico’s central bank and also a former official at the fund.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s finance minister and head of the IMF’s policy advisory committee.

Mark Carney is head of the Bank of Canada.

Arminio Fraga formerly president of Brazil’s central bank.

What do all these choices have in common? Like Lagarde, they are all total insiders.

Fischer was Ben Bernanke's and Greg Mankiw's Ph.D. thesis advisor. He has also served as Vice Chairman of Citigroup and President of Citigroup International.

Carney spent thirteen years with Goldman Sachs in its London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto offices. He was involved in Goldman's work with the 1998 Russian financial crisis. Goldman while advising Russia was simultaneously betting against the country's ability to repay its debt.

You get the picture, it's a total insider game. With different factions fighting for control of this powerful position.

UPDATE: The  United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European members of the G-8 -- France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany -- are all firmly in favour of Lagarde, according to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.