What $50 billion actually looks like
Ever wondered what $50 billion actually looks? Well .... it's the brown note above.
Apparently it will buy you two loaves of bread but with inflation at an estimated 231,000,000%, by the time you're finished reading this it will probably only buy you one. (I should insert a 'smiley' symbol here, I suppose, but I can't bring myself to.) The $50 million and $250 million dollar notes in the picture will obviously buy far less. $1 million notes are now cheaper to use as toilet paper than the real thing, which shops in Zimbabwe stopped stocking a long time ago anyway.
Except for his excellency the country's tin-pot president, Robert Mugabe, who is currently on holiday in Malaysia having lifted $92,000 from his private piggy bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, for the purpose. That's $92,000 in U.S. currency of course. Even at the official rate of exchange, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality, that would be $836,754,587,636 in "Zimdollars" today, according to the OANDA website. On the black market, the Z$1 trillion to USD1 exchange rate was surpassed way back in August.
Back then, the breakfast at the famed Meikles Hotel would set you back a cool $10 trillion. (Hat tip to Christopher Reichert at 'Life is Never Dull.')
All of which might be the source of some amusement were it not for the sheer depth of human tragedy that it reflects in the life of the average Zimbabwean.