NYC Letter: Big Spending Zimbabwe

A pint of beer at Harare's cricket ground is Z$800 million. A 13-amp plug on Tuesday cost me Z$1.3 billion. Photocopying a two-page document came to Z$269 million. The Z$10 million note, introduced at the beginning of the year to reduce the snaking queues outside the banks, will not buy so much as a banana.

Jan Raath,
reporter in Harare,
itemizing multi-billion dollar daily expenses
(infra)

MORE AND MORE, LESS AND LESS
The Quadrillion Z(ero) Dollar Economy

Z$1BN NOTE HIGHLIGHTS A FOE THAT ROBERT MUGABE
CANNOT THREATEN WITH VIOLENCE

HARARE, Zimbabwe May 31, 2008 (Times Online) - President Mugabe has so far seen off his foes with a combination of violence, bribery and treachery. But there is one problem that is impervious to his usual strongarm tactics: Zimbabwe's decrepit economy.

The currency crashed unstoppably through a new low this week, passing 1 billion Zimbabwean dollars to £1, after the weekly Zimbabwe Independent quoted officials in the government statistics department as saying that inflation for the first three weeks in May was 1,700,000 per cent.

... The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe estimates that next month the average family of six will need Z$350 billion to provide the basics for survival. This month the basket was Z$100 billion.

... In November the annual budget for the entire Government, including the army, air force and police, was

Z$7 quadrillion.

[Hat tip: Hervé]

Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, now Mr. Mugabe's worthless Z$ quadrillion economy. Eventually the army will no longer want Mr. Mugabe's printing press money and go looking for a new master. And sorry Zimbabwe will become sorrier still.