If you think the American economy is bad, take heart that it's nowhere near the ultra-super-hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, once one of the richest countries in Africa. The country's central bank has recently issued a Z$100 billion note (yes, Z$100,000,000,000).
So, what would a Z$100 billion note buy you? About two loaves of bread (it won't even get you lunch - you'd need at least Z$250 billion for lunch).
So far this year, the country ravaged by hyperinflation has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession. All of them are now almost worthless.
It has become common now for Zimbabweans to talk of their daily expenses in trillions (one trillion is 12 zeros).
When John Robertson pinned a chart to the wall of office naming numbers up to twice as long, he says he "raised a bit of a laugh" from his colleagues.
But for many officials and accountants, a quadrillion - a million billion - is the number of the day.
Previously on Neatorama: The Zimbabwean Crisis
Confiscate the landholdings of experienced (and productive) white farmers and redistribute it to a larger number of inexperienced black farmers.
Farm productivity plummets, food becomes scarce, hyper-inflation ensues. People starve.
Robert Mugabe Bright Idea #2:
Run for re-election. When your opponent forces a runoff, have thugs beat the hell out of anyone who voted for said opponent in the first election so they don't make the same "mistake" again.
Yeah, people of Zimbabwe were really being oppressed by British colonial rule. geez.
Eventually, no-one will even take zimbabwe dollars, and the regime will crumble.
Some gov'ts have done this in a "revaluation". They print new bills and say a million of the old currency equals some number of the new.
However, if you don't confront the root causes of the inflation (see Sid and Tom's posts), then all this does is to keep people from having to mess with taking a cart full of cash to the grocery store.
Zimbabweans are only allowed to withdraw $100bn a day from the bank, that's less than half the cost of a loaf of bread. So regardless of zeros being removed, people cannot buy bread.
it doesn't really matter what the number is, whether your pay cheque says $1,000,000,000,000 or $100, but if a loaf of bread costs a weeks wages then the trouble remains.
Your 100% correct. Great comment!
And some starve.