Making Our Financial Crisis Look Bush League (no pun intended)

In our preoccupation with the U.S. financial crisis - now democratically spreading to Asia and Europe - we may have forgotten about the goings-on in Zimbabwe.

A bit over a year ago, I reported that their inflation rate was set to hit 100,000% for the year. Now it looks like the economists got it wrong. In fact, the annual inflation rate has now hit 11,268,758.90%. That's the number reported by the governmental Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Check out their website, which will inform you as to the vision and mission of this feckless institution:

Our Vision
To become the financial cornerstone around which Zimbabwe's economic fortunes and developmental aspirations are anchored.

Our Mission
The pursuit of the Bank's vision will express itself through leadership in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies and action plans for fighting inflation, stabilisation of the internal and external value of Zimbabwe's currency ...

A few other tidbits from their website:

• Inflation in the last month has been 839.80%
• The overnight interest rate is 8500.00%
• "The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has, as its primary goal, the maintenance of the internal and external value of the Zimbabwean currency. In this regard, the Bank is responsible for the formulation and implementation of monetary policy, directed at ensuring low and stable inflation levels and maintains a stable banking system through its supervisory and lender of last resort functions."

I would have explored their website further, but the pages load so slowly that the price of bread doubled three times while I was waiting.

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The people of Zimbabwe are waiting, too. Over 5 million face starvation by the end of the year. My guess is that the great statesman, the near-divine President Mugabe, has food to eat that his people know not of.

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Meanwhile, the world does nothing. Why intervene? It's just a bunch of black people who have nothing to offer us.

The Most Surreal Country on Earth? Part 2

Back in August, I referred to inflation in Zimbabwe, which was at risk of hitting 100,000% by the end of the year. Now it looks like they might fall short. But no one knows for sure. From The Economist's weekly politics update:

Zimbabwe's chief statistician said that he can no longer work out the country's inflation rate because there are not enough goods left in the shops to count. In September inflation was reckoned to be almost 8,000%.

Prices can't go up if you've nothing left to sell. Now there's a novel - or should we say surreal? - approach to battling inflation.

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(Photo: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe)

The Most Surreal Country on Earth?

Surreal to me. But not to those who have to live there. Zimbabwe is run by a lunatic with a Hitler moustache, and things just keep getting worse and worse.

Take this article, for example:

IMF warns Zim inflation could hit 100 000%

August 01 2007 at 12:04AM

Prices in Zimbabwe could be 1 000 times higher at the end of this year than they were at the beginning, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted on Tuesday.

Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe's economy is crippled by acute food, fuel and foreign currency shortages.

"If recent monthly trends continue, IMF staff projects that year-on-year inflation could well exceed 100 000 percent by year-end," Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, director of the IMF's Africa department, said in an interview in Maputo.

Zimbabwe already has the world's highest inflation rate, now officially running above 4 500 percent, although analysts believe the figure to be double that. Critics blame the policies of President Robert Mugabe, including the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms.

Hundreds of business people and traders in Zimbabwe have been arrested and fined for overcharging or failing to display prices, but the price blitz has worsened shortages of most basic goods such as the staple maize-meal, cooking oil, meat and sugar.

Mugabe's African peers have largely refused to intervene or even criticize him as things have gone from worse to worse over the last several years. The Organization of African Unity is practicing the wrong kind of unity.