Paris was hardly empty of U.S. visitors last week. But there were far fewer American voices than in past years, and the ones you heard were saying things like, "It's so ex-PEN-sive!"

The U.S. dollar — which once carried the adjective "mighty" before it — is now a shadow of its former swaggering self. In 2000, one U.S. dollar could buy 1.21 euros, the then-new European currency. Now, one euro equals about 1.56 U.S. dollars. Another downhill marker was rea ...

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