Zimbabwe, Home of the $15 Million Burger!

[Tuckerfan]

No matter how bad the economy gets here, we’ll always be able to point and laugh at Zimbabwe, it seems.

Zimbabweans will be soon lining their pockets with 10-million-dollar bills.

The central bank annouced Thursday it would increase the denomination of the nation’s highest bank note more than tenfold to keep pace with the world’s highest inflation rate, officially estimated at 25,000 percent annually. Independent financial institutions say real inflation is closer to 150,000 percent.

The new 10-million note is the equivalent of about $4 at the dominant black market exchange rate.

In an effort to end chronic cash shortages and long, chaotic lines at banks and automated teller machines, the bank will issue the new notes on Friday along with 1-million and 5-million dollar bills, said Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.

Wow.

[Wee_Bairn]

Seriously, how do you make a transaction or monetary request of any sizable amoint of money with this- does the average person know what comes after trillion for example? How would you then ask for a sizable amount of money?

[Snarky_Kong]

I’d think people would deal in goods and not cash. What’s the point of having money on you when next year it’ll be worthless?

[Tuckerfan]

@Snarky_Kong

I’d think people would deal in goods and not cash. What’s the point of having money on you when next year it’ll be worthless?

“Next year”? With a 25,000% inflation rate, I’d say the next hour!

[Lumpy]

If it means that Robert Mugabe will die and free Zimbabwe of his rule, I will accept the indefinite postponment of the invention of perpetual youth.

[The_Scrivener]

This “reform” may succeed in reducing the demand for wheelbarrows. For awhile, anyway.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Snarky_Kong

I’d think people would deal in goods and not cash. What’s the point of having money on you when next year it’ll be worthless?

Maybe they have to use money - ie, there’s something preventing them from resorting to barter in any great numbers.

[Savannah]

@Lumpy

If it means that Robert Mugabe will die and free Zimbabwe of his rule, I will accept the indefinite postponement of the invention of perpetual youth.

If it means that Robert Mugabe will die and free Zimbabwe of his rule, I will accept the indefinite postponement of losing weight.*

As they say, there’s a special place in hell for that man, and I sure hope it’s hot. And viciously, endlessly tormenting.
Ah, the irony–it burns. But I really, really want to lose my excess bodyfat. God, why isn’t this world fair? Why am I obese when children die of starvation?

[Rick]

I got an an extra $4 bucks, how do I go about getting a $10 million dollar bill?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Rick

I got an an extra $4 bucks, how do I go about getting a $10 million dollar bill?

I’m sure you can find a Nigerian who needs $20 million in Zimbabwean currency moved somewhere…

[Darryl_Lict]

I’ve said it here before, but when I was in Zimbabwe in 2002, it was 400 Zim dollars to the US dollar. A week later it was 600 Zim dollars to the US dollar. I still have some Zim $10 bills. I think I may actually have a Zim penny, or at least, several coins less than $1. I’ve got a bunch of black $100 casino chips from the casino at Victoria Falls. At the time, I heard that Michael Jackson had a partial ownership in the casino. I was a real high roller, playing blackjack at $200 Zim a hand!

[Colibri]

When I was in Zaire in 1992, a million zaires was just about enough to buy a bottle of beer. I have a couple of one-million zaire bills with a picture of Mobutu on them. While I never saw one, I would have guessed that they must have had larger denominations for larger transactions.

[Xema]

@Darryl Lict

when I was in Zimbabwe in 2002, it was 400 Zim dollars to the US dollar. A week later it was 600 Zim dollars to the US dollar.

I was at Victoria Falls in 2000, and the currency troubles were in an early phase. The “official” Zim-US exchange rate was IIRC around 40:1, but the “street” rate was close to 100:1 - things became quite cheap if you were willing to do a back-alley transaction.

It was a great place and time to visit, but there was a palpable sense that it wasn’t going to last. Mugabe was turning nasty, and people were worried. It would be interesting to know what Victoria Falls is like now - how much tourism remains (on the Zimbabwe side)?

[Malacandra]

Time to trot out the story from the days of German inflation when someone was carrying his weekly wages home in a shopping basket, which he temporarily set down outside a shop. When he came out again, the money was still there, but the basket had been stolen.