Here’s some candid, non-academic language to describe an unusual pattern in American markets, brought to you by a monetary-policy historian.

Stocks? Down. The U.S. dollar? Same. Demand for U.S. bonds? Also sinking. This isn’t supposed to happen — not all three at once.

But Barry Eichengreen sees a historic reaction where there’s really one common theme: a collapse in faith in the United States.

“Global investors have concluded that there is a madman in the White House, and that the lunatics have gained control of the asylum,” said Eichengreen, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley who studies currencies and central banks.

“The damage is clearly beyond repair.”