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From the Publisher's Desk July 2008
"Dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles..tout est au mieux." or "In this best of possible worlds.all is for the best."
Voltaire (1694-1778) Candide (1759) ch. 17!"
Coming Soon To Your Country?
That's what it takes to buy a cheap dinner for four in Zimbabwe. around 25 billion Zimbabwe dollars today.
The Zimbabwean "government" issued its first 500 million dollar bill late last week -- a testament to the power of fiat money and government recklessness.
Under Robert Mugabe's watchful eye, the Zimbabwe inflation rate has reached a milestone: 165,000% since 1980. Back then, the U.S. dollar and the Zimbabwe buck were nearly equal in value. Today, your average $200,000 home in the U.S. would cost over 50 trillion Zimbabwe dollars. In other words, the latest Zimbabwe bill -- the mighty
half-billion note -- is "worth" around US$2.
Prices for goods in Zimbabwe nearly double every week. Note-strapped banks run out of cash by 10 every morning. And the nation's central bank has issued eight new multimillion-dollar notes this year just to keep up. The unemployment rate is estimated at 80%.
Kudos to President Mugabe. He's really doing a bang-up job. And. he's just received a shipment of 3 million AK-47 bullets from China to ensure that he can keep doing such a great job after his so-called election.
See you next issue
Shamrock
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
- Edmund Burke, 1784
