So what happens when the greenback climbs by 25 percent? That was a question pitched to U.S. Treasury-secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin -- a product of concern about potential protectionist actions in the Trump administration. The background: Economists have penciled in dollar appreciation of as much as a quarter as an offset to the imposition of a U.S. border tax along the lines proposed by some Republican lawmakers. Mnuchin, responding to written questions following his Senate confirmation hearing last week, didn’t detail the effects of such a gain, other than to say that sometimes there are “negative short-term ... (full story)