Q&A: How the dollar’s slide affects gas prices

The weak U.S. dollar is helping to push oil and gasoline prices higher, making imported goods more expensive for Americans and overseas vacations more costly. At the same time, it’s helped U.S. exporters. There’s been a flurry of talk from President Bush and other high-level officials in recent days, some of it seemingly contradictory, about the importance of a “strong dollar.”