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FrodosPet

(5,169 posts) Fri Jun 12, 2015, 01:04 AM Jun 2015

As currency dies, Zimbabweans will get $5 for 175 quadrillion local dollars

http://news.yahoo.com/currency-dies-zimbabweans-5-175-quadrillion-local-dollars-153844646.html

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabweans will start exchanging 'quadrillions' of local dollars for a few U.S. dollars next week, as President Robert Mugabe's government discards its virtually worthless national currency, the central bank said on Thursday.

The southern African country started using foreign currencies like the U.S. dollar and South African rand in 2009 after the Zimbabwean dollar was ruined by hyper-inflation, which hit 500 billion percent in 2008.

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At the height of Zimbabwe's economic crisis in 2008, Zimbabweans had to carry plastic bags bulging with bank notes to buy basic goods like bread and milk. Prices were rising at least twice a day.

~ snap ~

The highest - and last - bank note to be printed by the RBZ in 2008 was 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. It was not enough to ride a public bus to work for a week.

~ snap ~

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I hope there is no one left who believes the United States can buy prosperity just by having the government print more and more and more currency.

9 replies

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Highlight:

As currency dies, Zimbabweans will get $5 for 175 quadrillion local dollars (Original Post) FrodosPet Jun 2015 OP

Hyperinflation has only ever happened in the presence of foreign-denominated debt Recursion Jun 2015 #1

I've got one of those 100 trillion dollar notes Art_from_Ark Jun 2015 #2

That makes Weimar Germany hifiguy Jun 2015 #3

He's certainly made a mess of things Art_from_Ark Jun 2015 #5

They made it passed idiocracy levels GummyBearz Jun 2015 #7

I bet those Idiocracy notes would be worth more than the local ones Art_from_Ark Jun 2015 #8

500 billion percent...that is an interesting number. Rex Jun 2015 #4

How about they take a magic marker and line out all the zeros? shraby Jun 2015 #6

Yet we still have had DUers defending Mugabe since this nonsense started 7962 Jun 2015 #9

Recursion

(56,582 posts)

1. Hyperinflation has only ever happened in the presence of foreign-denominated debt

Reply to FrodosPet (Original post)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 01:13 AM

Jun 2015

And we don't have any of that to speak of.

Art_from_Ark

(27,247 posts)

2. I've got one of those 100 trillion dollar notes

Reply to FrodosPet (Original post)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 01:16 AM

Jun 2015

I believe it's the highest denomination (numerical value) ever issued for a currency-- easily surpassing the 500 billion dinar note issued by Serbia in the 1990s and all of the German hyperinflation notes, as well as the Hungarian 1 billion pengo notes that were issued in the mid-1940s.