The Dean

An old friend writes:

…a mere month later and the information below seems like child's play. Anything in the shops for under $100 billion is now "cheap". The "longish-bun thing" (bread I mentioned below), is now $5 billion - if you can get it (and you usually can't). Inflation is now over 10 000 000% ("10 million per cent" for those who are not familiar with big numbers!). Many things more than double daily - often 10x at a jump. 1lt fizzy drinks went from $5 billion on Thursday (controlled price I think) to $51 billion on Friday!

500ml packet of fresh milk did this:
Last Friday 28th June: $2.4 billion
Monday 30th June: $4 billion
Wednesday 2nd July: $ 10 billion
Friday 4th July: $21 billion (and was the same on Saturday…)

We can now draw $100 billion a day - but everywhere is wanting cash, so that is not enough for anything. Some places still take cheques but if they are smart, they charge anything from 20%-100% extra to compensate for the loss they'll carry over the 4 days the cheque takes to clear. Electronic payment is available again (not everywhere), now that the banks have finally managed to sort the machines out to handle the too-many zeros… some banks still haven't figured it out and so one has to swipe the card through many many times, 9 billion at a time, in order to pay. (Most small shopping trips cost 500 billion - a trillion dollars…so work that out, paying 9 billion at a time.). Standard Chartered has removed six zeros for their purposes - what you pay in "thousands" actually means "billions". They have done that to all their systems - so bank account balances have an invisible 000 000 after the figures shown! i.e. $14 000 means $14 billion not 14 thousand!

A "Trillion dollars" is very common terminology now. 2 or 3 weeks ago I paid $1,4 trillion (plus some USD) for my car to be serviced… Yesterday I saw a MOP (floor mop on a handle) for $1,4 trillion and a yard broom for $1,2 trillion. It shows you how fast things are moving. And those are not fancy 1st-world type mops/brooms - just the good old Africa wooden handle things! I must take my camera and take pictures of some of these things - but it doesn't look quite as amazing as it sounds, as the shops all state their prices is millions or billions - ie. Take off 6 or 9 zeros, respectively.

It's hard to even keep up what this money is really worth, as it changes daily. Tomorrow is a whole new week, but at the end of last week the USD was worth about Z$45billion. So the daily withdrawal of $100 billion is just over USD 2. There is talk of nine zeros being removed by the Reserve bank in August - but we'll wait and see. The German company that has been supplying us paper for printing notes, is no longer going to do so. Hopefully the lack of ability to print money will happen soon and that will curb inflation.

Anyway, these are just numbers!!!! Ha ha!

Attached are the scanned $25 billion and the $50 billion notes for your interest. (Print them off - they may even work!!)

Best regards,
Lindy

Border Reiver

I'm glad she can see the funny side. Not sure I'd be able to.

Inselaffen

and a big thank you should be sent to Russia and China for blocking the proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe.

twinkle-star

What is the conversion to the pound then??

Welivehere

About 1 pound to Z$90billion.

twinkle-star

That would make milk about 25p then!....Dont know what they are all complainig about its cheaper to live out there.........

The Dean

There is no milk, as only black cows are allowed to work these days.....

twinkle-star

Bullocks.....

Vladimir

Our (Russian) organisation helps to citizens of this country with new job opporunities.
What can you (as not rasist) sent to Zimbabwe except paper and sanctions.

nottmbantam

FFS sake, its akin to 1930's Germany where inflation was so bad, people had to use wheel barrows to carry their money around to buy a loaf of bread.

Sadly, a politician caught the attention of the people with his policies and they voted him into power. The rest as they say, is history.

Vladimir

As i remember in russia. We have only 1500% though. Any kind of money simply dosn`t work. People buy products for products and money was just a paper. Inflation is poor propaganda that haven`t anything with reality.