In For A Penny, In For A Billion Dollars
I have a plan. I think I can save Zimbabwe. I’m not saying I can do it single-handedly. Certainly, the groundwork has been done by Thabo Mbeki, inserting himself into the middle of that slightly gruesome hypocrisy sandwich on Monday, as Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai shook hands, and smiled at each other only with their mouths. That meeting could bring peace. It could bring stability. But it’s not going to bring prosperity. They need another plan for that. And, like I said, I think I have one. At almost the exact moment that the meeting was taking place, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank issued its first $100 billion note. It’s not as much as it sounds. The Zimbabwean shopper will need four to buy a dozen eggs, and another for his bus fare. On paper, it’s worth only slightly more than it is as paper, that’s to say about 7p. But consider - on eBay, it’s worth about £40. Think about that. If Zimbabweans can only get to a computer to auction their notes, they can turn their $100 billion into, I think, nearly $57 trillion. Do it again, just the once, and they are into the realms of quadrillions. Then quintillions, sextillions, and all the others your calculator can’t cope with. Septillions, octillions and vaudevillian rapscallion scullions. Suddenly they’re the new Russians. Notaphily to the rescue.
Obviously, this is not an endless supply of cash. The world only contains so many $100 billion notes and indeed, so many potential notaphilists prepared to buy them. Still, for a time it could work a dream. Monopoly money leaves the economy, real money comes in. That’s good, isn’t it? Anyone? Anatole? For all I know, Robert Mugabe clicked on this months ago. Maybe that’s how he keeps himself in shiny marble bathrooms and grim shirts. A cyberspace Nero, fiddling on his laptop as Zimbabwe burns. It’s a complicated business. Some $50 billion notes actually sell for more than $100 billion notes, and some $5billion notes sell for even more than them. What do you call it, when little notes are worth more than big ones? It makes my brain feel like a water balloon squashed in a fist. Economics with motion sickness. In another generation, Zimbabweans could be the best mathematicians in the world.
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