SOMETIMES the gods of finance deliver choreography that might make future historians chuckle. This week in America provided one such moment.

On Tuesday (Aug 1), the special counsel Jack Smith announced a blistering new indictment against former US president Donald Trump for allegedly launching “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy”.

And on the very same day, the credit rating agency Fitch stripped America of its hallowed AAA tag, echoing a similar 2011 move by Standard & Poor’s. This means two out of the three big rating agencies have now downgraded treasuries — never mind that these supposedly define the “risk-free” benchmark for global finance.