africawinsagain...
Posted on 09/26/2007 7:03:27 PM PDT by vikingd00d
LONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe's attempts to control prices amid Zimbabwe's worsening economic crisis have backfired and now even the black market faces shortages, a senior British diplomatic source said on Wednesday.
"Mugabe's efforts at price control have not only backfired but they've exacerbated what is a fairly catastrophic situation anyway," said the source, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
"It displaced retail activity into the black market, where there is no control, so inflation ... is probably anywhere between 13,000 and 20,000 percent," the source said.
The Zimbabwean government said in its latest report that inflation was about 6,600 percent. That is down from previous monthly estimates but still the highest in the world.
Under Mugabe's 27-year rule Zimbabwe has plunged from prosperity to penury. The country once called the "bread basket" of southern Africa is now suffering from persistent shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food.
Zimbabwe credits a government-imposed price freeze in June for helping to control inflation.
But the British diplomatic source said Mugabe's price-cutting attack "completely fractured the supply and production chains behind the retail sector, which were pretty fragile in any case. Companies have lost billions of Zimbabwean dollars and ... even the black market is beginning to dry up.
"We know we'll be feeding 4 million people by January or February, possibly more," he said, warning Zimbabwe was on the verge of "a really very serious food and every other kind of shortage".
Mugabe has said he will attend an EU-Africa summit in Portugal in December and the British official said that meant Prime Minister Gordon Brown would skip the event.
"If Mugabe's there then the prime minister is not," the source said. "Whatever's useful on the agenda could well be overshadowed by (Mugabe's) presence."
He stressed that Brown's stance was not an effort to derail the conference, the first EU-Africa summit in seven years, and officials hoped a solution to the dispute over Zimbabwe's representation at the summit could be found.
"We're not saying Zimbabwe shouldn't be there -- the very opposite. ... The solution, the compromise -- if compromise there is -- will not come from President Mugabe. It will have to come from the African Union and/or SADC," the source said referring to the Southern African Development Community, which supports Mugabe attending the meeting.
JimmUhhh Smarter economics 101 graduate.
Move the UN from NYC to Harare Zimb. Great lesson in economics.
Too bad democrats are even less intelligent than Mugabe in this regard.
>even the black market faces shortages
LOL! Big surprise. A part of Africa reverts to type and the world is shocked.
After all, Rhodesia was a total failure...
LOL!
He should be arrested and executed on the spot.
Amazingly, Mugabe does not give a rat’s *ss about any of this. He controls the platinum industry and pockets vast millions each year.
Socialism is for the slave class (that would be everyone else in Zimbawe besides Mugabe and his Nomenklatura elite).
Ian Smith is still alive (last I checked) and still runs circles around this Marxist buffoon.
Part of the Jimmy Carter legacy.
By the way, Mugabe was warmly received by the New York City Council several years ago. It seems they liked his efforts to stick it to the white man.
Shame on us for being critical of “Home Rule” in Africa..
This is EXACTLY what the Leftists, U.N., Hollywood and “do gooders” fought long and hard to achieve in Africa...
HOME RULE —
Those who KNEW that the “unintended consequences” of the liberal/Marxist’s designs on Africa would be far worse for the Africans were ignored — to the African’s horror.
Remember - “All cultures are equal”.
>> Here’s how Mugabe stays in power:
>> http://www.zimplats.com/
Well, that and the Green Bombers.. There’s just nothing like training up a cult of fanatical child-soldiers and having them prove their loyalty by raping their own relatives and torturing random people to frighten a country into submission.
Mugabe was actually a fairly benign ruler for many years. It wasn’t until his opposition started to gain ground on him and threatened to do the things that Mugabe is now doing did he take a turn for the worse.
>> The white farmers knew how to drive the economic engine of the country. Now there is no driver or engine. The black substitute farmers drove it into the ground That’s the story. Not the Communist price control angle.
I consider them linked. The hatred of Western Civilization preached in Communism always leads directly to anti-white racism. And those that hate white people will be naturally led to Communism. It’s the nature of the beast.
Let Africans’ figure out how to help them. They stole the whites farms, property and whatever whites owned. They were forced out. It’s NO longer whites problem, it’s africas’ problem.
africawinsagain...
Well the former breadbasket of Africa Zimbabwe is (as usual) starving. What do we do?
I believe in the ancient, time-honored motto, “If you simply just give a man food, he will soon be hungry again. If you give a man a gun, he will go shoot that sonofab*tch Mugabe and the rest of the Marxist scum and get the food.”
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