Zimbabwe Inflation - %2,000,000

[cmccuist]

Hyperinflation is raging so fiercely in the beleaguered African nation of Zimbabwe that it threatens to wipe out the supply of local currency.

With prices in the country doubling every few days, the official inflation rate is running at more than 2 million percent — and at least four times faster in reality, according to The Economist.

That has forced the central bank to print ever larger denominations. The largest denomination banknote in mid-July was 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars — then worth about 70 U.S. cents.

But with residents forced to carry baskets full of currency to buy a loaf of bread, the supply of the zimdollar — the Zimbabwean dollar — has been dwindling. What’s more, the German company that was providing Zimbabwe with the paper for its banknotes canceled its contract.

The runaway inflation has caused unusual hardships for the country:

• A minibus driver taking commuters into the capital of Harare charges one price in the morning — and a higher price for the trip home in the evening.
• Some Zimbabweans haven’t bothered to bend over and pick up a banknote worth hundreds of thousands of local dollars lying on the pavement, The Economist reports.
• Restaurants and shops raise their prices several times a day.
• A civil servant paid in Zimbabwean dollars earns the equivalent of less than $2 a month — enough to buy two loaves of bread, which in late July cost 200 billion zimdollars in Harare.
• Zimbabweans spend their local dollars as fast as possible or change them into hard currency on the black market.
• Gasoline and rents are now paid largely in U.S. dollars or the South African rand, and rents are increasingly paid for in groceries.
• An estimated 80 percent of the work force is unemployed, and many with jobs don’t earn enough to pay for bus fare to their workplaces, The Associated Press reports. About a third of the citizens are dependent on foreign food aid.
• The government has now taken steps to deal with the currency crisis, knocking 10 zeroes off the inflated currency. New banknotes are being issued, and on Aug. 1, 10 billion zimdollars became one zimdollar.

President Robert Mugabe's critics blame his land reform program, which sought to seize land from white commercial farmers, for much of the nation’s economic crisis. It has also been attributed in varying degrees to government economic mismanagement, government prohibitions on relief efforts from foreign non-governmental organizations, a drought affecting the entire region, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Mugabe has repeatedly blamed sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union and the United States for the state of Zimbabwe’s economy.

The only thing that hasn't happened yet is for Jimmy Carter to go to Zimbabwe and slobber all over Mugabe. Maybe is wasn't such a good idea to take the land from the farmers and give it to the non-farmers.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

So what is causing this exactly?

[legion]

Sounds like Weimer Germany.

[daepp]

Did Carter have a role with Zimbabwe/Mugabe?

[Mule]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

So what is causing this exactly?

It's Bush's fault!

[cmccuist]

It has to be that the populace has no faith in the government - that the government is not going to stand behind the currency. So people are resorting to bartering, black markets, using US dollars and South African Rands, hoarding food, anything to keep food on the table.

Mugabe ruined that country. They used to export food. Now they're starving and thier currency is worthless.

[cmccuist]

Originally Posted by daepp

Did Carter have a role with Zimbabwe/Mugabe?

He helped get the dictator elected:

Rhodesia held free elections in which black moderate Bishop Abel Muzorewa was elected to the post of Prime Minister. However, the world press (and Jimmy Carter) declared the elections null and void because the two terrorist groups, ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) and ZANU (Zimbabwe African Nationalist Union), were not invited to participate. A continuation of sanctions eventually forced another election, overseen by international collectivists.

To nobody's surprise, the more powerful of the two terrorist leaders, Robert Mugabe, edged out rival Joshua Nkomo for the top slot, in balloting which was described as "one gun, one vote."

This was heralded by the world press as the gate to a new era, as Cecil Rhodes' name was dropped. During the 1980s, the saying was that "One used to go to Rhodesia to see the ruins of Zimbabwe. Now it's the other way around." American President Jimmy Carter hosted Mugabe at the White House in 1980, proclaiming that he had watched happily as Mugabe emerged victorious, adding that he was going to use similar tactics in his own reelection campaign!

[Willem Fick]

Another African success story I'm afraid...

One has to understand how Africa, and particularly the concept of democracy in Africa works. In the rest of the world, democracy gives everyone the opportunity to help change the way in which a government works, in theory at least. In Africa, democracy gives rise to elections, which is simply a tool for a new set of people to get to the loot. (Ever wondered why one never hears of an African election that is not disputed by the opposition after the fact?)

Once they get their hands on the money, they intrench themselves by manipulating the democracy, and the rules that govern it to ensure that they remain in power for as long as they can. Since they have the loot, they can easily bribe and graft their way out of trouble and into more money, untill such time as enough of the "have-nots" have gooten fed up and overthrow the "democratic" one-party government, when the cycle repeats itself.

Zimbabwe is exactly the same. Mugabe was the darling of the western world, despite a terrible human rights record, because he sold himself as a liberator to his people, and a moderate to the world. This was great, as it got him to the loot. He has since raped his country, and has of late resorted to using the entire Zimbabwean economy as his wallet:

• He takes white/foreign owned farms and businesses and even mineral rights, and either sells them to the Chinese, or gives them to those he needs in order to cling to power. The money earned for these transactions never enter Zimbabwe, but go to his own foreign coffers.
• He lays claim to all foreign currency, buys it from the central bank at the official rate, and then sells it on the black market at an exhorbitant rate. The money he makes in this way, is comfortably hidden away in bank accounts all over the world too, or spent by his wife in her extravagant shopping trips to South Africa and Europe.

If anything, the US and UK has to be commended for at least having woken up from their Mugabe supporting haze, and for pushing the Zimbabwe issue at various world forums. Unfortunately the most key of these is the UN Security Council, where Russia, China, and the "democratically elected" South African government (read: those with a vested interest in keeping Mugabe in power) get to decide what gets discussed, and what doesn't.

Rant over...

[daepp]

Jimmie was the worst POTUS in my lifetime - this just adds to my disgust for him.

Probably among the most decent men to occupy the office - and one of the worst leaders.

[cmccuist]

Mugabe is representative of everything that is wrong with Africa. We should just stop sending aid to the governments over there. And we should not ever entertain any debt relief as well, which is what Paul Hewson (Bono) is constantly lobbying for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/opinion/15theroux.html

Malawi is another example. Aside from being Madona's orphanage, it's also a basket case.

Malawi had two presidents in its first 40 years, the first a megalomaniac who called himself the messiah, the second a swindler whose first official act was to put his face on the money. Then, is 2005, the new man, Bingu wa Mutharika, inaugurated his regime by announcing that he was going to buy a fleet of Maybachs. Just what a backwater, fourth world country needs! A dictator with a fleet of $400k cars. Pathetic.