"You can't buck the markets"

[ewx]

We all know (probably...) that printing large amounts of money cause massive inflation and generally makes a mess of your economy. Zimbabwe has now reached the logical conclusion: it can no longer afford to print money.

Comments

[simont]

I find myself unreasonably amused by a currency in which $5 million is fiddling small change. Zimbabweans must be completely immune to 419 scams; they'd just look at the sums on offer and think "pfft, why bother?"!

[imc.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a Smith & Jones sketch.

[gerald_duck]

Buying petrol in Italy was faintly scary for very similar reasons. Before the days of the Euro, they used a £ sign for Lire (albeit as a suffix not a prefix). Spotting your pump reading "140000£" when you don't expect it is not good for the nerves!

After the introduction of the Euro, Italy apparently hit the converse problem: quite a few elderly people didn't grok decimal fractions because they'd never before encountered them, so couldn't understand prices denominated in Euros and Eurocents.

[nevboo.livejournal.com]

150% pay rises!

Money in Zimbabwe sure has changed. I went there 11 years ago when it was 25 Zim$ to 1Pound Sterling.