I-Believe-in-Strong-Dollar Turns Relic as China Begs

More than a decade after former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin made the "strong dollar" national policy, currency traders say the same words coming from the Obama administration have little meaning.

Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury secretary, has tolerated the greenback's 12 percent slide from its peak this year in March as measured by the Federal Reserve's trade- weighted Real Major Currencies Dollar Index. While he said as recently as Oct. 3 that "it is very important to the United States that we continue to have a strong dollar," the last time the U.S. intervened in markets to support its currency was 1995.