# Hey baby, wanna meet a guy who can buy and sell a country? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 30, 2013, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792 "2013-01-30T07:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/1 "2013-01-30T07:03:16Z")
Yep, you found him right here > **[World News: Latest International Headlines, Video, and Breaking Stories From...](https://www.nbcnews.com/world?lite)** > > Get the latest news, updates, and video from around the globe. $217 for a treasury balance, is nothing for a guy like me, I spend more than that on my apartment _ **every month** _, to give you some kind of idea, but I just hate to brag. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/2 "2013-01-30T07:09:17Z")
Maybe we should take up a collection or something? Let’s see…I get paid this week…I can chip in twenty bucks, I guess. (Boy, I feel like a big shot now–like the IMF or the World Bank or something! I’m gonna start setting all sort of terms and conditions–“OK, Zimbabwe, if you want my twenty bucks, here’s a list of political reforms you’re gonna need to make…”) ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/3 "2013-01-30T12:09:57Z")
Sounds like an interesting crowd-funding project. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/4 "2013-01-30T12:41:29Z")
Psst. **Diamonds** needs you in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=680653) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/5 "2013-01-30T12:52:42Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Maybe we should take up a collection or something? > > Let’s see…I get paid this week…I can chip in twenty bucks, I guess. > > (Boy, I feel like a big shot now–like the IMF or the World Bank or something! I’m gonna start setting all sort of terms and conditions–“OK, Zimbabwe, if you want my twenty bucks, here’s a list of political reforms you’re gonna need to make…”) > [@BobArrgh](#): > > Sounds like an interesting crowd-funding project. Heh. This would be an awesome Kickstarter project. “Fund Zimbabwe!” And then you could have multiple funding goals, ranging from Mugabe recreating the dance from the “[Weapon of Choice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs)” video if they hit the $10,000 minimum target to widespread electoral reform if they hit $1.5 million. Hey it could work. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/6 "2013-01-30T18:48:21Z")
I wonder if shipping back my $180,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars would help? ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/7 "2013-01-30T21:57:57Z")
I dunno, $217 _sounds_ like a good deal but i don’t think there’s much of a resale market for disfunctional countries. If you’re just gonna keep it a few years you’ll never get your money back. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/8 "2013-01-30T22:14:36Z")
Well, to be honest, having $217 in the bank is probably better than owing $3 Trillion…so maybe we should get that Finance Minister from Zimbabwe to come over here and look into our books… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/9 "2013-01-30T23:32:39Z")
So, could someone go in and effectively buy the country and install their own army and whatnot? If I was living somewhere, where my annual income was whatever I could scrounge to eat and keep a roof over my head and some clothing and some dude came in and wanted to be president for life I might actually go along if it meant a ‘signing bonus’ of $100 american in credit at a government store, 3 sets of clothing, a run through a medical clinic and a BBQ party. [no actual cash, I can see all sorts of robbery going on.] ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/10 "2013-01-30T23:36:23Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > I dunno, $217 _sounds_ like a good deal but i don’t think there’s much of a resale market for disfunctional countries. If you’re just gonna keep it a few years you’ll never get your money back. Yes, but its good to be the king… ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/11 "2013-01-30T23:42:07Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Well, to be honest, having $217 in the bank is probably better than owing $3 Trillion…so maybe we should get that Finance Minister from Zimbabwe to come over here and look into our books… Zimbabwe has the [highest ratio of public debt to GDP on the planet](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html?countryName=Zimbabwe&countryCode=zi®ionCode=afr&rank=1#zi), at 219.70%. (By contrast, the US public debt/GDP is 67.80%.) So, they have a couple hundred U.S. dollars in the bank, and owe about 14 _billion_ U.S. dollars. And of course we can pay off our debt in U.S. dollars, which we can print more of, and which (despite that fact that we can–and essentially have been–printing more of them) the rest of the world still seems to want. Whereas Zimbabwe no longer has their own currency–they use our dollars, South African rands, and so on–and has about zero prospects of being able to stably and responsibily exercise its sovereign power to “print more money” to pay off its debts anytime soon without just winding up producing more brightly colored wallpaper and wacky news stores about 100 trillion dollar bills and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/12 "2013-01-30T23:45:57Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > …and owe about 14 _billion_ U.S. dollars. Actually, I see from other sources it may “only” be about 7 or 8 billion USD that Zimbabwe owes to international creditors (and another 1 billion USD in Zimbabwean debt held domestically). ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-wanna-meet-a-guy-who-can-buy-and-sell-a-country/648792/13 "2013-02-04T23:11:53Z")
I have one of their 100 trillion dollar bank notes. Suppose they want it back?