Beyond ruin .....
According to another communique received from the Brenthurst Foundation this morning, the inflation rate in Zimbabwe is now "6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion per cent." In plain English, that means that the long-since functionally worthless currency now halves in value every day. The economy of this country (once one of the most prosperous on the continent) deteriorated first slowly, over a decade or more, and then precipitously in the last year or two as "mad Bob" Robert Mugabe's lunatic policies reached full effect. A warning to all of us that are tempted to ignore systemic problems in the hope that they will self-correct.
Zimbabwean inflation rates over the past decade leading up to the tongue-twister figure above were:
| 1999 - 59% | 2004 - 350% |
| 2000 - 56% | 2005 - 238% |
| 2001 - 72% | 2006 - 1,017% |
| 2002 - 133% | 2007 - 6,724% |
| 2003 - 365% | 2008 (July) - 231,150,889% |