The world's single largest currency denomination has been issued

[thatcrazycajun]

We knew the African nation of Zimbabwe was in deepest, direst trouble, owing to the misrule of its current president, a megalomaniacal, corrupt piece of excrement that walks like a man named Robert Mugabe. But this is how bad it has gotten: his constituents now need a 50-billion-Zimbabwean-dollar note to buy two loaves of bread. Yes, you read right: the currency has become so nearly worthless it takes 50 billion units to buy subsistence food.

What a hellish way to get into the Guinness book. Kenya has severe problems, all right...but at least it's not Zimbabwe. Pray for the peoples of both countries, if you believe.

Comments

Can We Fix It?

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Very appropriate icon.

And I'm hoping we can avoid hyperinflation here. As big a mess as Hoover left on FDR's plate, at least FDR inherited a reasonably sound dollar.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is even close to the record, which I think was set in Hungary in the post-WW1 years.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

There was a single unit larger than 50 billion? Do you remember what amount?

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

10 trillion paper:1 specie, IIRC.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

It was One Hundred Million Billion Pengo (that's an English billion, or a million million, so 100M of them was
10²⁰ pengo)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

and this, mind, after the "new dollar" was issued in 2006, at an exchange rate of 1000 old dollars to one new dollar.