Posted on 03/24/2009 5:56:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Consumer prices in Zimbabwe declined in January and February according to the country's Central Statistical Office, suggesting that the substitution of U.S. dollars and other hard currencies for the virtually worthless Zimbabwean dollar has vanquished hyperinflation.
The statistical authority said prices fell 3.1% in February from the month earlier, and declined by 2.3% in January from December levels, a stunning turnaround from the last inflation rate officially announced by the CSO of 231 million percent in July of last year.
Some prominent international economists including hyperinflation expert Steve Hanke of the Johns Hopkins School of Applied Economics reckoned Zimbabwean hyperinflation reached percentage gains in the quintillions and sextillions before they stopped measuring.
Hanke in a monograph on Zimbabwean hyperinflation had recommended among other cures a currency board system in which the local currency would be rigidly pegged to the U.S. dollar, but the gradual adoption of the greenback and South African rand by businesses and the general population as a surer store of value has had much the same effect.
Nearly all goods and services in Zimbabwe are paid for with hard currency and the Zimbabwe dollar has fallen out of use except for paying certain official fees and fines.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti has predicted inflation will fall to 10% by the end of 2009.
Economist John Robertson cautioned in an interview with reporter Blessing Zulu however that that although food prices have been declining, the same cannot be said of services including fixed-line and mobile telephone accounts now billed in dollars.
Did they consider that the dollar could be now inflating faster than the Zimbabwe currency?
Yes, it may be wiser to choose a country that isn’t ruled by an African.
ROTFLMAO
Zim is going to keep our inflation low by absorbing all those dollars. We’ll have to print even more now.
I wonder what currency we will use here in the USA after the dollar becomes unusable?
Hey, where are the pic-posts of those Z-billion $$ bills?
Look out for a flood of counterfeit hard currencies to start cropping up.
Zimbabwe already makes a worthless coin that matches the nickle in size but not weight. That's a grift of almost five cents, drinks are on Bob. Someone is putting them into circulation though.
give it a couple of years...
Now that Zimbabwe has vanquished hyperinflation, as a first step in his monetary package, Obama plans to peg the worthless U.S dollar to the the virtually worthless Zimbabwean dollar .
Maybe we should stock up on those billion dollar notes for our time in the barrel yet to come.
Wot is the bill in U.S. dollars?
Don't forget, Bob is BFF with the North Koreans, notorious counterfeiters of the US$100 bill.
Zimbabwe’s going through deflation? Quick, somebody grab Bernanke! Call Geithner! We’ve got to prop up their wages, unfreeze their credit, and spur their consumption.
I hope we go for the Looney......it’ll match up well with the bunch in DC.....
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