Amid Zimbabwe's mind-boggling hyper inflation, a new 100 billion dollar bank note has more value as a novelty item on eBay than on the streets of the capital.
The note, launched this week, is worth enough to buy a loaf of bread _ if you can find one on Zimbabwe's depleted store shelves. Meanwhile on eBay, the bill was on offer for nearly US$80.
Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it's cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper.
In the political and economic turmoil since disputed March 29 elections, prices have risen almost daily. Factories and businesses have shut down amid empty order books and chronic shortages of gasoline, power, water and spare parts for equipment repairs.
Reminds me of the inflationary notes from Germany from WWI.. now they're virtually worthless so far as I know.. I've purchased them in the past for as little as 25 cents.
Just a year ago they were printing Z$500 and Z$1000 bills and right now you will need a handfull of those to buy a box of matches or as you say, used for toilet paper.
Yesterday I saw on Ebay only 50 Billion bills or less.
It may be hard to find the 100 Billion bills as there is a shortage of special paper to print money that was coming from Germany, who decided to stop supplies.
BTW, average wages right now in Zimbabwe is about 200 Billion, enough for 2 loaves of bread.
A meal for one on an average restaurante will now set you back 1 Trillion Zim Dollars, if there is any food available!
Cheques are no longer accepted for obvious reasons. ATM machines can only handle so many Zeros, same with Banks. It's a total meltdown.
It may be worth taking a trip to Zimbabwe and come back with a handfull of those 100 Billion bills and put them on Ebay. That should pay for your trip.
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"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated"
That's what happens when they destroy the farms. A takeover of the white farms by disgruntled locals, with support of the military government has caused a huge problem for all of Africa. Damn shame...
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Unfortunately, strangers have the best candy.
Is this the biggest cheque EVER? For Zimbabwe $1,072,418,003,000,000 .. or about US$4.00 on July 23rd 08.
The astronomical sum of one quadrillion, seventy-two trillion, four hundred and eighteen billion and three million dollars only– note the "only" – was drawn on the MBCA Bank in Zimbabwe, part of one of the largest banking groups in Africa.
You have to be quite good at maths to get all those zeros right!
I wonder how much this cheque could fetch if it landed on Ebay?
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"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated"
I read their new "solution" is to cut off 10 zeros from the money won't be 10,000,000,000 it will just be 1.00. That of course solves everything! There is no pink elephant...
That will definately help the banks, ATM machines, register machines and ordinary folks who have problems digesting so many zeros. But the core problem remains. with Inflation at about 12million % and rising fast. The only thing this stupid government knows, is to keep on printing money which agravates the situation even more.
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"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated"
hahah that's awesome. There's so many on ebay right now, most are getting ~$70. That's impressive really. I mean you can go to Zimbabwe, get a couple quadrillion Z$ and come back and make a profit. haha.
For sure. In fact you can have a free holiday if you can come back with a handfull of these bills, especially now that they are going to change to new bills without all those zeros.
Hurry up and book your African Safari to Zimbabwe before they run out of those Z$100 billion bills!
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"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated"
Eventually these bills will be worthless to collectors too IMO.. it's not like they're in short supply and all we have to do is look at the old German inflationary bills from WWI to see they won't retain any collector value.
Not to say I don't wish I had a handful to put on eBay myself but I'd feel guilty selling them for that kind of money.
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or about US$4.00 on July 23rd 08.
