Posted on 06/22/2007 3:33:47 PM PDT by Enchante
THE value of the Zimbabwean dollar has suffered its worst crash in memory, sparking a run on US dollars and forcing stores to close early to put new prices on what little they could afford to stock.
Black-market exchange rates -- fuelled by the central bank buying at the illegal rates to pay the mounting debts of crumbling state fuel and power utilities -- rose to more than $Z300,000 ($1450) to one US dollar in large offshore deals, one trader said yesterday. The official exchange rate is 15,000:1.
"It's gone crazy," said the trader, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People are holding out for the highest bidder and mentioning as much as 400,000:1, which could be tomorrow's price. It's changing by the hour." The going rate had doubled since Monday, he said.
In local deals, the US currency fetched at least 140,000:1 in cash and about 200,000:1 in electronic bank transfers. Shortages of Zimbabwe bank notes had created the premium on bank transfers, the dealer said.
Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate, officially estimated at about 4500per cent but calculated by finance houses at closer to 9000per cent.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
At least toilet paper is useful..... tell Sheryl Crow to stock up on Zimbabwe’s currency!!
The US dollar is next. Or so it seems. When I traveled to MN last week the Canadian dollar was almost equal to the US dollar, at least according to my credit card statement. It has been 30 years, I’m told, since the Canadian dollar was worth this much against the US dollar.
Will some neighboring country please invade and run Mugabe’s regieme off. Mugabe is an embarrasment to African Kleptocracy!
“rose to more than $Z300,000 ($1450) to one US dollar in large offshore deals, one trader said yesterday. The official exchange rate is 15,000:1.”
I’m confused. If the $1450 is Australian dollars, the article equates one US dollar to 1450 Aussie ones and 300,000 Zimbabwe ones. If it’s US dollars, they’re saying $Z300,000 is worth $1450, not one US dollar. Is the Aussie dollar worth 1/1450th of the US dollar?
What am I missing?
Yep, no doubt...9,000% inflation is just around the corner in the US.
It’s true. I lived in Ontario during the seventies. I finished paying off the car I had bought in the US by making payments in Canadian dollars, converting them to the cheaper US ones. It was pretty cool.
The glory of Black rule. How wonderful, huh?
Look in your pocket real soon and see the change is what you could buy a gallon a gasoline a year ago. Now take that by 4000% and that’s what you get with Robert Mugumbie. (Gumby: play on words) Take away the farms and private property and you have a recipe for disaster. Look around this country and you’ll see the same thing.
Jimmy Carter and Andrew Young, and Harold Wilson. The biological fathers of chaos, death, disease,hyperinflation and tyranny in Zim.
A nation that is a net IMPORTER of everything except disease and death.
Gone is Rhodesia and the “colonial” White rule where Blacks and Whites both served in the army, went to school, were employed and resided in a nation that was a net exporter of food, to the rest of Africa.
Not too likely.
I'm sure we can count on our good friends from the Peoples Republic of China to keep buying our debt.
In a secret ballot at the UN in New York, Zimbabwe was elected to lead the Commission on Sustainable Economic Development (CSD) by a 26-21 vote with three abstentions.
Real economic role models those Zimbbabweians.....NOT!!!!!
Have anything to do with the new political equation in Canada?
Just waiting until Mugabe makes an appearance before the UN crying for help when it was he that caused the country’s all its problems. And as usual, the UN will sink money into a lost cause and won’t help the country but line Mugabe’s pockets.
Under the Liberals, and their twisted version of “Keynesian” fiscal policy, we ran up nearly ruinous debts throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. This didn’t start to change until the “Progressive Conservatives” under Brian Mulroney were elected in 1884.
Mulroney ended operating deficits & was going after the debt. By the time the next Liberal government was elected, even they admitted that things had to change. We’re now slowly paying off the debt.
Mulroney also brought in free trade (Canada-US FTA, NAFTA) and we’re now seeing the benefits.
Finally — the Loonie has become a petrodollar -- but even oil wealth is no guarantee of success. You can see how much difference a Conservative government, and sensible fiscal policies make by looking at the trend in exchange rates between the Loonie and, e.g., the Saudi Riyal; or the Venezuelan Bolivar.
Does the IMF step in when stuff like this happens? I think they prescribe some pretty severe austerity measures, as they are called. But what’s the alternative?
ping
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