Zimbabwe introduces $100 billion banknotes

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's troubled central bank introduced new $100 billion banknotes Saturday in a desperate bid to ease the recurrent cash shortages plaguing the inflation-ravaged economy.

The new bills officially come into circulation Monday, although they were already on the foreign currency dealers market Saturday.

As high as they are, though, the new bills still aren't enough to buy a loaf of bread. They can only buy four oranges.

Once-prosperous Zimbabwe has seen an unprecedented economic meltdown since it gained independence in 1980, with the official inflation rate now at 2.2 million percent.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the new notes are for "the convenience of the banking public and corporate sector" in light of price hikes.

"The RBZ has noted with concern the unjustifiable and incessant general increases in prices of goods and services. It is therefore appealing to the business community to follow ethical business practices as well as take an interest in the plight of the general public," Gono said in a statement dated Friday.

In January, the government issued bills in denominations of $1 million, $5 million, and $10 million -- and in May, it issued bills from $25 million and $50 million up to $25 billion and $50 billion.

The new bills are actually bearer checks and have an expiration date of December 31. Zimbabwe has not had formal currency since the introduction of bearer checks as a temporary measure in 2003.

..And the othe question you should have been be pondering was - once there were no more rich, how do we feed anyone?

I've since come to the conclusion that those who believe in Marxism/Socialism (and in many ways, this new environmentalism religion) have bought into the idea that "wealth" is a zero sum game. That there's only so much "wealth," provided by the earth, and if you're wealthy, you got that way by stealing it, or at least keeping others from getting wealthy. Since there are so many "poor" people, it must be easier to take a little bit from each of the poor, rather than a lot from the rich, since the rich are "all in it together."

This is really rather weird, when you think about it, because it happens to violate one of the prime tenets of Marxism, which is the belief that the evil of capitalism is that the wealth added to "the system" by the workers is "stolen" by the capitalist, rather than kept by the worker - that the worker isn't profiting from his work. But that flies in the face of those who believe in the system I mentioned above. If there's only so much wealth in the world, then how can a worker add wealth? It's sort of like the people who try the "Atkins Diet" and claim that it failed them and is dangerous because it didn't work, but on closer inspection you learn that they never actually read the book and didn't really follow the diet closely.

It's a pathology based on stupidity, jealosy, and the belief that privation is noble, that wanting to succeed, for the benefit of ones' self is evil, and that "the social good" is the highest good to which we can aspire. Of course, deciding on exactly what that "social good" happens to be is open to debate. For instance, the whole concept of "carbon offsets." AlGore tells us how important it is to minimize our "carbon footprints." A terrific idea. Never mind that AlGore will be making a bundle off of it... Even notice how the "social good" always manages to enrich those who push it? But of course, THEY'RE NOT IN IT FOR THE MONEY...

Mark

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