Markets should beware the normalisation of threats

NEXT month Wilbur Ross, 86, the private equity luminary and former commerce secretary under Donald Trump, will publish a memoir, Risks and Returns. Investors should pay attention.

For tucked into the saga of Ross’s striking business career – and conversion from left to right-wing politics – there is a startling episode involving Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chair.

Back in 2018, as Ross tells the tale, the president became so furious with Powell’s decision to raise interest rates that he told Ross to “please call this idiot, and explain to him that I will repudiate” his job unless Powell changed tack.