Zimbabwe To Slash Value Of Currency

Zimbabwe will knock 10 zeros off the country's hyper-inflated currency next month, making 10 billion dollars one dollar, the nation's central bank governor said Wednesday.

President Robert Mugabe immediately warned in a televised address that he will impose a state of emergency if profiteers take advantage of the change on Aug. 1.

"Don't drive us further. If you drive us even more we will impose emergency measures. We don't want to place our country under emergency rule," Mugabe said.

Zimbabwe suffers the highest inflation rate in the world. Inflation is constraining operations of the country's computer systems, central bank Gov. Gideon Gono said.

Computers, electronic calculators and automated teller machines at banks have not been able to handle basic transactions in billions and trillions of dollars.

Just last week Gono introduced a new 100 billion-dollar note that is not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

Gono said on Aug. 1 the bank will issue a new 500-dollar bill equivalent to 5 trillion dollars at the current rate.

Meanwhile, Mugabe said Wednesday that negotiations with the opposition on a power-sharing government were continuing.

He said in a televised address that "we want to succeed." But he warned that "sometimes compromise is difficult."

South African mediators have said the two sides adjourned for a few days but others say they are deadlocked over who would lead a new Zimbabwean government. Both Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai insist on being head of government.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to the talks to end months of political violence that has left more than 150 people dead.

[lloydbest1]

"...Has any country in the history of the world had this kind of inflation?" Posted by Keithle1 at 05:01 AM : Jul 31, 2008

In 1923 the Weimar republic of Germany experienced an inflationary cycle similar to, if not worse than, the one in Zimbabwe now. It was said that a British soldier could purchase a new automobile for the equivalent of a few shillings (about 25 cents) or a factory in full production - not that there were that many in Germany at the time - for the equivalent of a few pounds (about five bucks). In December of 1923 the exchange rate was 1 Trillion German Marks to the dollar. During the last months of 1923 inflation was about 3 million percent per MONTH.
Hungary had an even rougher time of it in 1946. Their Pengo collapsed so suddenly and completely that by late summer that year an item that cost one Pengo at the beginining August cost 42000 trillion (yeah, 42 followed by 15 zeros!) at the end.
Scary stuff and it bodes ill for Zimbabwe and also - and this is important - her neighbors as well.
Google "hyperinflation" for the sources...Lloyd.

[whiskyrokkr]

Savages---all of them.

[keithle1]

Only the good die young. Mugabe will live to be 110.
Why hasn''t the country exploded yet? I don''t get it. This is insanity. How do people survive in these conditions? Has any country in the history of the world had this kind of inflation?

How many whites are left in Zimbabwe?

[lloydbest1]

I do believe he is even worse than GWB! Posted by gramto11

If you''re not sure about that feel free to move over there for a few decades and report back to us if we have it as bad as they do... Posted by checkthepast at 10:31 AM : Jul 30, 2008

Comparing Mugabe to GWB is rather like comparing apples to oranges. The political structure that constrains both are vastly differernt. Here we have a well thought out system of checks and balances. Any of us who has had elementary civics in school will understand what they are and what that means.
Zimbabwe has never had such a system. Not during the precolonial times, not during Ian Smith''s reign when it was called Southern Rhodesia; and certainly not now under their failed ruler.
To imply that His Bushness is a better leader simply because our country is in better shape means very little since the rules under which each country operates are vastly different.
The separation of powers built into our political system and embodied by the constitution are the only things separating us under Bush from complete and utter chaos. Without that structure - structure Zimbabe does not have - America today would be little better off after 8 years of presidential misrule than Zimbabe is now under Mugabe.

[hotwitch]

Zimbabwe should just adopt another currency like the Euro. Doing so will make the Zim dollar worthless, but that''s kind of already happened.

[checkthepast]

I do believe he is even worse than GWB!

Posted by gramto11

If you''re not sure about that feel free to move over there for a few decades and report back to us if we have it as bad as they do...

[newsjunky5]

One more important fact - The German company that was selling paper for printing currency to Zimbabwe won''t sell them any more of it. Makes it hard to keep printing more money. Still, I wish I had sold them at least one loaf of bread at the old price.

[wardoglrs]

President FDR (on Fascist rule in a letter to corporate con man %u201CColonel%u201D Edward M. House, a founder of the Council on Foreign Relations and political fixer for the ruling class. House also handled President Wilson for the foisting of the privately rigged %u201CFederal Reserve%u201D Corp bank monopoly. 11/21/ 1933)

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin (1802)

When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated - Thomas Jefferson

[wardoglrs]

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes." Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter,1952

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. James Madison

%u201CThe end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of [private cartel] lending institutions and moneyed incorporations
President Thomas Jefferson (a founder of America in condemnation of present and future monopoly money power. 1743-1826)

[wardoglrs]

You can laugh at this man but I warn you that this will happen to the dollar. Get informed before its to late.
%u201CWith the exception only of the period of the gold standard,all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.%u201D - Friedrich Von Hayek


%u201CThe real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government of the U.S. ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.%u201D

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas Jefferson

"Paper is poverty,... it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself." Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1788


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