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| Africa Subsaharan | |
| Zimbabwe inflation hits new high | |
| 2008-10-09 | |
| Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate - already the world's highest - has soared to 231,000,000%, newly released official figures for July show. The rise - from 11,200,000% last month - was largely due to increases in the prices of bread and cereals. A landmark power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to ease the country's economic crisis. Meanwhile, the UN says it needs $140m for food aid over the next six months.
The inflation figures are from July - before the power-sharing deal - but reports from Zimbabwe suggest that the prices of many goods has continued to shoot up, while the value of the Zimbabwe dollar is plummeting. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #12 This can't continue. At this rate Bob will exhaust the world's supply of paper. It's not fari soon my kids will have no paper to do their homework. We keep trying to get more paper for our printer but Staples and Wal-Mart are both out of everything except Zimbabwe dollars. We have had to dedicate one entire bathroom to beaching ZimBob dracma's back into usable white paper and let me tell you when his abuse of power shutdown the Charmin factory he made me one unhappy camper. I eat far too little ruffage to make wiping with African currency a comfortable experience. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2008-10-09 22:39 |
| #11 I was told there would be no math |
| Posted by: ZimBarbie 2008-10-09 18:56 |
| #10 I think his major qualifiction for the job was that he was Bob's personal banker. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-10-09 14:23 |
| #9 Bob's finance minister must have gone and got an MBA at an Ivy League school. But he never took mathematics seriously. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-10-09 11:14 |
| #8 B, it reminds me of ..."The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now *I* am the master." Any amateur can pull down a country's finances, but to pull down an entire world's financial infrastructure takes real (non-)talent! |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-10-09 10:50 |
| #7 They've managed to accomplish all of this WITHOUT Franks, Dodd, Paulson and Bernanke? Amazing, absolutely amazing. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-10-09 10:29 |
| #6 How can worthless money inflate? |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-10-09 10:06 |
| #5 I guess they could always ask the whites to come back and run the country for them. But that would be "degrading". Much worse than the lingering death of famine and political upheaval. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-09 09:45 |
| #4 We must be on the five year Zimbobwe economic recapitalization plan. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-09 09:43 |
| #3 Hey, Bob, just wipe out your credit market, crash your stock market and then print some more money...oh, wait, never mind. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-10-09 09:23 |
| #2 Meanwhile, the UN says it needs $140m for food aid over the next six months. Bugger off! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-10-09 08:15 |
| #1 Modern technology - your ticket to brand-new, dizzying innovations in hyperinflation! At least in the old days, hyperinflation suffocated when the printers gave up and refused to keep printing. Now the only limitations are temporary and addressable by minor coding adjustments. Until, I suppose, the communications network goes down. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2008-10-09 07:38 |