http://preview.tinyurl.com/ebay-100B There seems to be $100B note. What am I missing?
They cut 10 zeros from the currency in august---100B was converted into whatever 100B/10^10 is, and they restarted from there.
Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
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Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#32It's amazing how thoroughly has been completely destroyed in the last decade. What I think most first-world readers miss is that Zimbabwe is not one of those (previously) ultra-poor, undeveloped countries -- it's had a frighteningly long fall to get to where it is now.
Yeah, it used to be considered a model African country, with the highest increases in standard of living year/year of any country in the world. Robert Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwe. Wikipedia has some really excellent further reading on Mugabe and Zimbabwe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe
IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa.
Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful.
Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed in a lot of other ways.
The original owners of the land were highly captialised. The people receiving the land often had no experience in cultivation, and even if they did, they had zero capital. They couldn't buy seed, machinery, expertise. The money and expertise required to turn this around pretty much fled the country.
So large farms that produced vast quantities got broken up into small farms that produce almost nothing.
At one stage Zim was in talks with China to have Chinese workers come over and work the land. I don't think that ever came to be, but China is a big player in Zimbabwe still - a lot of tourism, aid, weapons and immigration (several million?) comes from China.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#33How can an economy survive with such an inflation? How can you work, knowing that the salary you agreed to at the beginning of the day, is now worth 10 times less
Hello, gold. Mugabe can't inflate it unless he's a real alchemist. I wonder if the US could get into this sort of situation?
Gold is somewhat impractical. Having access to a lot of foreign currencies (on the black market, if necessary) is a substitute.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it used to be considered a model African country, with the highest increases in standard of living year/year of any country in the world. Robert Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwe. Wikipedia has some really excellent further reading on Mugabe and Zimbabwe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe
IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa. Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful. Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed i…
From what I've heard the land distribution was even worse than that -- farms were more often than not given to party hacks rather than poor farmers.
The problem seems to largely have been that the land reform wasn't actually an act for social justice so much as a populist political move. Egypt's attempt at land reform seemed much better planned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number...
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#35The tragedy of Zimbabwe is that a functioning, wealth-creating capitalist system that was evolving towards equal rights for blacks over time was sacrificed to satisfy the ego of a strong man, who proceeded to wipe out every trace of capitalism and rule of law, and replaced it with the law of the jungle. Zimbabwe's whites mostly left, so it is the black population that paid the biggest most terrible price. Naipaul has chronicled this process in his books very well.
As a member of an once "inferior" race, I can state with confidence that we were not inferior, we were just behind in adopting the institutions and cultural patterns of modernity. The whites were teaching us that - by example that we could watch and emulate every day. A gradual process of assimilating those values would have served us well. Kicking the whites out took that opportunity away.
Yes, none of this politically correct. That doesn't make any of it wrong either. Yes, there are white racists. Fuck them - they could not have stopped us from learning. Only we could have, and we did.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#36There's a lesson to be learnt here. Printing money = Inflation. I know it seems obvious, but the Federal Reserve has printed about 800 billion dollars so far, and if our government ends up with a 2 trillion dollar deficit in the next few years, we're going to be seeing the same phenomenon.
It wasn't that long ago (1970s) where inflation in US was 10-15%. Our population has short memories, and we seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past (vast government spending relative to revenue).
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#37In August last year, the RBZ slashed ten zeros from the currency. But the zeroes have bounced back with more vigor. That means in before August 2008 these would have been 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 notes. Yikes.
When will they start using scientific notation on the notes? I'd invest a few dollars at whatever exchange rate just to get a hold of some $10^23 notes.
It would be simpler just to switch to a log scale.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa. Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful. Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed i…
From what I've heard the land distribution was even worse than that -- farms were more often than not given to party hacks rather than poor farmers. The problem seems to largely have been that the land reform wasn't actually an act for social justice so much as a populist political move. Egypt's attempt at land reform seemed much better planned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number...
Interesting - I hadn't know about that before.
Agreed on your other points. I don't know the politics of the Egyptian reform, but colonialism still turns this in to a very complex set of issue. Especially when you try and distinguish between social justice and populist politics.
Again, if I recall correctly, in the early days of the land reform the UK pledged funds to allow property to be bought back from land owners. I think they even contributed GBP50 million or something (drop in the ocean admittedly), but the rest of the plan was eventually knocked back.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#39How can an economy survive with such an inflation? How can you work, knowing that the salary you agreed to at the beginning of the day, is now worth 10 times less
I'd imagine a sort of barter system takes the place of the currency. You could also try to rely on foreign currencies.
They actively crack down on those using foreign currency, it's actually illegal to use foreign currency for transactions there - although of course everyone does and there is a massive black market for this.
Mugabe also tried to fix the price of common goods - e.g. Bread, Milk, etc.
Re: Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note
#40Courtesy: Robert Mugabe!!!!!
This is what this idiot is capable of, after all!!!!!