Hum...

It remains beneficial for US consumers because Asian Exports are still billed in USD but this may change and then it could mean disaster.

The chart only shows Forex since mid-2003 or so.

The actual change since Euro launch on Jan 1, 2002 is almost 100% gain for Euro, going from 1EUR = 0.8 USD in 2002 to 1Eur = 1.5 USD 2007.

While it looks nice for europeans buying products in USD (ie. mainly Asian exports, not really POS US cars, hehe), it is a true nightmare for EU export companies (Porsche & co aside).

We have an uber-educated idiot as head of EU Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet.

This guy went to the most elitist of the most elitist French schools and early governement jobs (French State Inspection of Finance, the "creme de la creme") and considers himself smarter than the rest of us, while succeeding to totally crash the largest french -state backed- bank in the wildest scandal ever (cost the French tax-payers about USD 20 billions...).

This retarded moron thinks keeping EU inflation under control is more important than supporting growth, he doesn't care about EU vs USD forex a second.

You know something goes wrong when Airbus CEO, direct competitor of Boeing, calls for relocating EU plane factories to the US in order to cushion the EU-USD Forex disaster.

I mean the same Airbus plane now costs TWICE more in USD than in 2002 !
Not because it has more features but only because of that Forex.

As one of your former US President candidates said, this is the sound of US sucking the skilled jobs of EU citizens.

Which is a serious fuck : the real threat for both EU and US economies isn't EU vs US competition.

Hint 1 : Vegas lost the # 1 spot of worldwide gambling cities in terms of annual sales.
Winner : chinese Macau, former portuguese colony 50 km east of HongKong.

Hint 2 : check the labels on your clothes, small electric appliances, IT components, mobile phones, mp3 players, toys, etc.
Can you still read "made in US / EU" ?

Now the good news is : selling a pair of Nike for USD 150-200 in a EU/US store while it cost only USD 10 to manufacture and import from China.

That, contrary to conventional wisdom, is tremendous and highly beneficial to both EU and US workers and companies.
It's the way to move forward, hopefully we can continue doing so.

But the sad truth is that most EU and US citizens are too poorly educated to figure out the benefit of such a trade...
They'll just scream "it's a scandal, you are ripping us off", not being able to assess where the added-value was distributed....
(remember : China only got USD 10 of the 150-200 retail price)

/salute