1) The readjustment of the dollar vs. other world currencies is some sort of economic cataclysm and leaves the dollar unprecedentedly "weak".
Reasoning: Why is it that when a car manufacturer cuts its prices, it's considered "aggressive," but when a currency falls with respect to others, it's "weak"?
The "weak" dollar is so "weak" that the chairman of Airbus is complaining he can't compete. [http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=027041&From=News] And here's a perspective-making chart from Investor's Business Daily that you won't see in the New York Times:
Clearly the anomaly was during the Clinton years, when the "strong" (that is, "strong" as in "uncompetitive" and "flaccid") dollar seems, in retrospect, like a gift to Clinton's fellow Gramsciian socialists, then in power in Europe and struggling with that continent's uncompetitiveness.
That sound you hear is factories being built and workers being hired-- here, for a change.