For close to seven years, Zimbabwe’s economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, people there say, with one notable difference: the pace is no longer so slow…. The trigger of this crisis — hyperinflation — reached an annual rate of 1,281 percent this month, and has been near or over 1,000 percent since last April. Hyperinflation has bankrupted the government, left 8 in 10 citizens destitute and decimated the country’s factories and farms…. [President Robert] Mugabe, who blames a Western plot against him for Zimbabwe’s problems, has rejected all calls for economic reform. (New York Times, Wednesday)
All it It takes to bring a country to its knees is a printing press.
FEE Timely Classic
Hyperinflation: Lessons from South America by Gerald J. Swanson
