When does a press pass cost $27 billion?
When you’re a local reporter in Zimbabwe working for a foreign news outlet. Foreign Policy‘s Passport Blog reports that the government in Zimbabwe will begin assessing local journalists a fee of between $1,000 and $3,000 U.S. for the right to send news out of the country.
Considering the country’s 231 million percent inflation rate, $3,000 U.S. amounts to billions of Zimbabwe dollars.
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Hang on, so the Zimbabwean government is setting its prices in USD now? Surely at least the government should use the local currency!
So event THEY don’t have any confidence in their own currency!
No. 7 I couldn’t disagree with you more. Mugabe inherited a golden country by African standards.
Its hard to believe now but it was a food exporter before the land reforms that you say were needed.
Mugabe ruined the country and is soley responsible for the mess its in.
Here’s a question, at what point does a note become truely worthless. By this I mean when would a dollar bill of currency become worth so little that it could be used as scrap paper, toilet paper, or other means?
Is there ever a point even? I don’t know if I could truly use American currency as toilet paper, but with the value of Zimbabwe plummeting, there has to be a point where it’s a viable alternative.
The Zimbabwean Reserve Bank officially announced it’s Z$ 150 trillion note today. It will buy roughly three loaves of bread.
The situation is dire and money worthless. Zimbabwe has effectively moved backed to a barter economy.
Zimbabwe was a food exporter and they also had one of the most developed manufacturing sectors in Africa at the time of independence. HOWEVER, the benefits of this success were almost entirely concentrated in the hands of a few (almost all white) land owners. Do you really think that after years of fighting for independence, that there would not be significant popular inertia for land reform?
Simply looking at Zimbabwe’s economy in its aggregate numbers is very misleading for the above reason. Also, analyses of land use in Zimbabwe in the 1980′s have shown that a large amount of land was underutilized by these large scale farms. In some of the most productive areas less than half of the land was actually utilized (and that’s assuming that a quarter of the land was left intentionally fallow). Check out Sam Moyo’s work on Zimbabwe for a much more detailed account of this.
Mugabe has engaged in behavior that was obviously against Zimbabwe’s interests in the past (i.e. his involvement in the war in the DRC). Land reform is different. The need was real, but the execution by Mugabe was horrible.
@ Kinglink (#11),
I doubt anyone looks at this anymore, but money becomes a viable solution for toiletpaper when the value of the money becomes less than the value of the toilet paper. If a roll of dollar bills cannot buy you a roll of toilet paper, then on a piece-by-piece basis it’s more economically efficient to use the currency to fulfill your wiping needs, rather than “overpaying” for a more luxurious solution of real toilet paper.
no they have used the miss guided us government to help but the us cant help they have problem of there own at home we just dont talk about it here its time to wake up we need every one to help if you see this expose your local government they cant hurt us when were to stand in the constitution they all take bribes or lobyest money it time for america to tighten up its sad to not see my friends dads not workin when are we goin to wake up and take are country back from this emposter it just a matter of time we need to hurr up love the us