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| Africa: Southern |
| Simple Economics Continue to Baffle Mugabe |
| 2003-09-28 |
| President Robert Mugabe has established new courts to counter Zimbabwe’s critical banknotes shortage. The Zimbabwe leader blames the four-month-old shortage on the thriving black foreign currency market. Why the hell would there be any kind of foriegn market for currency that is totally worthless even in Zimbabwe where the notes are legal tender? Michael Santu of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe told the Sunday Mail newspaper the courts would co-operate with neighbouring countries. They will eliminate the Zimbabwe dollar’s illegal externalisation, he said. A donkey cart couldn’t externalize enough Zimbawe cash to buy a Snickers bar. Unless the neighboring countries are short of toilet paper, people other than natives of Zimbabwe have no reasonable use for paper with Robert Mugabe’s printed portrait. Mr Santu told the newspaper: "There is still a lot of money out of the country, especially in Mozambique and Zambia." Maybe Zimbabwe’s currency is printed on rolling papers. Zimbabweans use the notes to buy foreign currency abroad which they then re-sell onto the parallel market at home, he The courts are expected to start operating soon. Critics of the Mugabe-led government say banknote shortages are more to do with Zimbabwe’s soaring inflation rate, currently standing at more than 426%, than its black currency market. Since the dawn of time markets have only existed for items that are of value to other people. Nobody buys inflationary currency. The Zimbabwe Government introduced a new currency - bearer cheques - this week, but economists warned they are easily forged. "There is a serious danger because they can easily be manufactured using modern machinery such as scanners and photocopiers," economist John Robertson told Zimbabwe’s Standard newspaper. Encouraging counterfieting may be the only way that the government can keep up with the currency shortage casued by their stupid policies. My favorite economist, Walter Williams, has written several columns demonstraing that assured personal property rights are more important to the economic health of a nation than a constitution establishing liberal democratic rights. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #4 Only a reporter for the Beeb could be idiotic enough to believe a country with an inflation rate of more than 426% could have a shortage of banknotes. The "shortage" is, of course, merely the pretext the Mugabe regime is using to justify their nonstop printing of notes. |
| Posted by: Biff Wellington 2003-9-29 12:08:43 AM |
| #3 Not in the next year -- the 2004 election will have the softheaded types too focused on Bush hatred. I figure it will be 2005 before the loons notice the Zim famine. I fully expect to hear someone blame Bush for Zimbabwe, too. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-9-28 10:30:47 PM |
| #2 Mugabe and his fellow crimninals have refined the communist state to its perfect state: Complete barbarism. I got five bucks that sez our liberal/musical community starts a "We are the World II" before the year is out for the coming famine in Zimbabwe Anyone want a piece of that? |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-9-28 10:12:56 PM |
| #1 "Bearer cheques - for times when carting around several trunkloads of wastepaper isn't an option!" |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-9-28 10:04:44 PM |