Blogs > Cliopatria > Zimbabwe Wins!

Jan 31, 2009

Zimbabwe Wins!




A while back, I asked if Zimbabwe had"won" the unfortunate honor of having the world's largest banknote. One of our sharp readers, Timothy Abbot, pointed out that this distinction went to Yugoslavia with a 500 Billion note.

Well, according to this International Herald Tribune story , Zimbabwe has blown the top off the record with a 100 TRILLION Zim dollar note.

But, to show that even the Mugabe government has a learning curve, they have given up adding zeros, and opened Zimbabwean markets to trading in dollars and neighboring currency.

Now, I'm very much a"let's not dwell only on the bad news from Africa" kind of guy. But's let's face it, this is a total disgrace. The Mugabe regime now qualify as the most incompetent economic managers in modern history. Congrats, guys -- it's a hard won title, but well deserved.


comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:


Brian Macker - 2/1/2009

The saddest part of all is that economies don't need to be managed.

If people are allowed to freely decide what they want to use as money none of this would have happened. Not Zimbabwe and not the current US and world wide economic crisis.

All we need from governments is protection of our individual rights. Which includes the right not to be defrauded, and therefore the elimination of fractional reserve banking, the source of the boom-bust cycle.