Heavyweight Champ

For investors, the U.S. is where the action is. So money pours in and the dollar rules--but for how long?

Add one more to the list of myths exploded by the record U.S. boom. Remember when any unemployment rate lower than 6%, or any rise in national output of more than 2.5%, was supposed to light a bonfire of inflation? Come on, it wasn't that long ago--those beliefs died even harder than the '80s idea that the U.S. was becoming a corporate colony of Japan. And as late as the end of 1998, some economists feared that a ballooning U.S. trade deficit and the launch of a rival international currency, the euro, would send the American dollar into a headlong slide--maybe...

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