Wednesday, July 23, 2008

This is ironic...


So far Zimbabwe's response to the country's runaway inflation has been to simply print more money. But that strategy may be coming to an end because the German firm that supplies the paper for the money has cut Zimbabwe off due to international pressure not to do business with Robert Mugabe's regime.

The ironic part in all this is that the German company - Giesecke & Devrient - once printed money for Germany's Weimar Republic, which itself suffered from hyperinflation like Zimbabwe does today.

Zimbabwe has been running its money presses 24/7 trying to keep up with the demand for bills caused by the runaway inflation. The denominations on Zimbabwean bills have gotten laughable - the latest is a $100 billion bill. Zimbabweans are also being limited to withdrawing $100 billion from the bank at one time, the only problem is that bus fare in the capital Harare is now $150 billion; so going to the bank to make a withdrawal is simply not worth it.

Meanwhile, negotiations on a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangarai (who won the first round of Zimbabwe's presidential election) continue.
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