Tuesday, 3 February 2009

You know you have hyperinflation when ......

.... you can cut 12 zeros off your banknotes.

This report from the BBC says that Zimbabwe is revaluing its dollar again, removing twelve zeros from the currency with immediate effect. Just last year, the central bank was forced to take 10 zeros from the local unit in an effort to make the currency more manageable, but the zeros returned within a few months. And the 12 just removed will also return within a few months.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who supplies Zimbabwe with paper currency these days? It was the German company Giesecke & Devrient until June last year, which, incidently, provided the same service for the Weimar Republic during the 1920s. It's catchphrase:

"Giesecke & Devrient"
"Creating confidence."

http://www.gi-de.com

Yes, there you go. When I think of Zimbabwe, I think of a country awash with confidence. Wow..., I could use some more of that.

macdoctor said...

Mugabe has also allowed other currencies to be legal tender. Within a month or two everyone will be using SA Rands and the Zimbabwe dollar can be allowed to die a peaceful death.

Paul Walker said...

Macdoctor: you are right about that, but he has only legalised what was happening anyway. Anyone that could get hold of SA Rands or US$s have been trading with them for a long while. Its a case of an inverse Gresham's law: good money drives out bad.