REACTION426

....our poor Zimbabwean brothers and sisters suffer under hyperinflation attributed to Mr Mugabe's reign of terror.

A South African friend of mine at work (Lemac Films) just returned from a Christmas/New Years holiday back in his home country and had this to share about his poor Zimbabwean neighbours.

At the end of 2008:

One 200 000 Zim dollar note (ZWD$) equaled less than USD$0.10 cents



Then, on 22 December 2007, a new note of 500 000 dollars is introduced to the market

Soon, a 750 000 dollar note

By January 2008 - new 10 million dollar notes...

...which at the time of print was worth 10 times less than this USD$10 dollar note

happily on his way to buy a handful of lollies at the corner shop

A case worth 65 billion Zimbabwe dollars equaled about USD$2,000

Off to the supermarket. The exchange rate at the time was 25 million Zimbabwe dollars for USD$1 dollar

This mountain of cash is worth as much as the USD$100 sitting on top of it

The ZWD$50 Million note is then introduced

why stop there tho?? Next up is the 250 million dollar note

"Sorry, how much was this t-shirt again?" "Oh, it's heaps cheap, only about 3 billion dollars"
(notice the sign - "...prices are now shown in millions and billions)

May 2008 - a note of 500 million dollar is introduced

June - notes worth 25 and 50 billion are printed (and the fantastic Mr. Mugabe)

and finally, a 100 billion dollar note

which at the time of printing could buy you these 3 fine eggs

yes, this is indeed how much people have to bring to a restaurant if they're to pay in cash

the bill

On 1 August 2008, the government devalued the Zimbabwe dollar by removing 10 zeros from notes

However, inflation kept going up, and by September for this amount of cash you could only buy around 4 tomatoes

and still a handful of cash for a simple loaf of bread

and then it started again, the 20 000 dollars note in September 2008

and a new 50 000 note newly printed just a few weeks back in the end of 2008

The country's currency plunged to a new record low just this last Monday, trading at an average ZWD$250,599,608,000,000,000.00 to the USD$ (I pulled that figure off xe.com's Universal Currency Converter which we always used at National Geographic Films when I worked there - remember you have to add 10 zeros to the end of the figures given) and triggering massive price increases.

The hyperinflation is now estimated at over 231,000,000%...although no one really knows.

All of which explains the picture of this toilet…

close up:


(if you doubt any of the above, have a read on the following link, and do your own currency conversion from USD$ to ZWD$ on any online currency trading site (ie www.xe.com, www.oanda.com, etc)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zim_dollar