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May 17, 2010

Monday

Today's theme is "a great deal of money."

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Comments

Five billion Zimbabwean dollars sounds like a great deal of money, but it's worthless.

Due to hyperinflation and three devaluations, what was once on parity with the American dollar became worth just one trillion trillionth of a cent.

Since printing and reprinting that money was impossible, the Zimbabweans went electronic with all payments.

Never mind that many Zimbabweans don't have access to electricity. And by the time everybody's pile of paper moved over to the e-banking system, the digit limit was reached and all accounts rolled over.

Now, they use American dollars.

(Which will one day do the same thing.)

Posted by: Laurence Simon at May 17, 2010 9:42 AM · Permalink