How to Turn 100 Trillion Dollars Into Five and Feel Good About It

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 11 2011 | MCGROARTY And MUTSAKA

[Berlin_Freeper]

A 100-trillion-dollar bill, it turns out, is worth about $5.

That's the going rate for Zimbabwe's highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender—and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, a hundred-trillion-dollar bill couldn't buy a bus ticket in the capital of Harare.

But since then the value of the Zimbabwe dollar has soared. Not in Zimbabwe, where the currency has been abandoned, but on eBay.

The notes are a hot commodity among currency collectors and novelty buyers, fetching 15 times what they were officially worth in circulation. In the past decade, President Robert Mugabe and his allies attempted to prop up the economy—and their government—by printing money. Instead, the country's central bankers sparked hyperinflation by issuing bills with more zeros.

The 100-trillion-dollar note, circulated for just a few months before the Zimbabwe dollar was officially abandoned as the country's legal currency in 2009, marked the daily limit people were allowed to withdraw from their bank accounts. Prices rose, wreaking havoc.

The runaway inflation forced Zimbabweans to wait in line to buy bread, toothpaste and other essentials. They often carried bigger bags for their money than the few items they could afford with a devalued currency.

[Berlin_Freeper]

A man in Harare, Zimbabwe, carried cash for groceries in 2008.

[Nat Turner]

Coming to a Federal Reserve Bank near you...

[Berlin_Freeper]

Is that a pile of BS?

[oldtimer]

Just as soon as the dollar loses it’s status as the world reserve currency.

[Nat Turner]

Monetizing debt and printing fiat currency has been the cause of inflation and economic collapse since Rome and Egypt. We saw it in Hapsburg Spain under Charles V and recently in Weimar Germany and Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The evil progressives and One World Globalists know this so that begs one question: "Are they stupid or is this the biggest conspiracy in the history of mankind?"

My vote is NOT for being stupid...

[Vehmgericht]

This was the work of Finance Minister and economic wizard Gideon Gono. He transformed the formerly impoverished population of Zimbabwe into trillionaires. His genius has not gone unnoticed and we can look forward to our incomes taking a similar increase.

[massgopguy]

I have a Billion Dollar Bill. The Alice Cooper Band is on it.

[WMarshal]

Whoooo-hooo!!!! I finally got my Obama bucks!

[rfp1234]

Yup. A faint image of a bovine is visible on the right-hand side, and a brown turd below it.

[familyop]

That’s a consequence of running a country on debt instead of a large manufacturing base.