Can a fiscal policy possibly curb the inflation in our heads?
The better part of last year saw me living in a secluded place where life is still relatively easy but not necessarily unharmed by the current economic melt down. Yes this is Zimbabwe! The one reason for this is that we are very close to the Botswana border where we get our groceries cheap using our parents’ hard earned forex they send monthly to support their kids in college. Although life is okay, the area is so secluded and the only news about the outside world is through over exaggerated satellite and internet news coupled with the toned down stuff our parents told us via email or telephone. Frankly, none of this prepared me enough for the shock of a life time when I set foot in Harare.
When Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono introduced the forex shops we were all relieved at least inflation was going to be past, our prices would be realistic and a lot of goods were going to be readily available on the shelves a slight return to the pre-land redistribution era. Every Zimbabwean was ready to sacrifice the little forex their Diaspora relatives had sent them. But alas, this was just another distant Zimbabwean dream. Read more
Zimbabwe Inflation at 10.2 Quadrillion Percent!
I found this article interesting:
Zimbabwe is the first country in the 21st century to hyperinflate. In February 2007, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate topped 50% per month, the minimum rate required to qualify as a hyperinflation (50% per month is equal to a 12,875% per year). Since then, inflation has soared.
The last official inflation data were released for July and are hopelessly outdated. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been even less forthcoming with money supply data: the most recent money supply figures are ancient history—January 2008. Read More Here
531 billion percent inflation- we need new text books
I understand that the latest estimates put inflation in Zimbabwe at 531,000,000,000 %! That’s astounding even for me a Zimbo through and through. I laugh when I think of how so impossible it must be for people who have never been to Zim to understand how the bleep this is can exist in parallel with an economy that somehow still clunks along. Read more
Gideon Gono steps down. Really?
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com/news/gono-steps-down/
By Gerald Harper
Reserve governor Gideon Gono will step down on Thursday this week two months before his second term at the helm of the Central bank expires,sources revealed to Metro.
MDC secretary general Tendai Biti who is highly tipped to take over as Minister of Finance in the new all inclusive government early this year blamed Gono for Zimbabwe’s economic woes.
“Gono is the number one enemy of this country, not inflation,” Biti, MDC-Harare East said. “He has been stoking the fires of inflation through quasi-fiscal activities. Read more
