Let us apply the logic of extremes. Jean-Claude Trichet on Thursday pushed the euro to new unimagined highs against the dollar as he declined to talk down the single currency. He appears set on a starkly divergent path from the Federal Reserve, which is committed to cutting rates to aid growth.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

Meanwhile, commodity prices stayed near record levels, suggesting extreme concern about inflation. And the price of buying insurance against default on the credit market showed that fears for the health of the financial sector, particularly in the US, is at extreme levels.

Now, let us put the messages from different markets together. The S&P financials was at a new low on Thursday, in dollars. But measure this index in euros and the scale of the collapse in the world's confidence in the US financial system becomes more apparent. This index has now fallen more than half - 53 per cent - since it peaked in euro terms as long ago as 2001.

What if gold, close to $1,000 per ounce, is the only true global currency? If we believe that, then it says something interesting about the price of US houses - another asset that can claim to be a store of value.

In gold terms, US houses have never been as expensive as they were at the beginning of the 1970s when the median house cost more than 700oz gold, according to Tim Lee, of Pi Economics. But they nearly regained that peak in 2001. Their decline since then - even as their prices in dollar terms have gone through the roof - has been precipitous. A US house would now cost you only 220oz of gold. Over history, this price has tended to revert to an mean of about 350oz.

So, if disparate markets are put together, the US financial industry has lost more than half its value and US housing more than two-thirds of its value since 2001.

Either the US is on course for disaster or the moves on these markets are overdone.

john.authers@ft.com

www.ft.com/shortview