I'm a multi-trillionaire

I have occasionally been following the simultaneously sad and ludicrous hyperinflation in Zimbabwe via new reports on public radio. I remember laughing out loud in my car when a reporter said that the cost of a loaf of bread had reached ten billion dollars.

Late last year, inflation was so out of control that prices were doubling every 1.3 days, yielding an annual inflation rate estimated at 516 quintillion percent. (See here.) The government responded by producing currency of ever-higher values. That trend hit its peak in January, 2009, with what you see above: the 100-trillion-dollar note. It didn't last long. As of July, the Zimbabwe dollar officially ceased to exist. The bills are now worthless as legal tender. The last radio report I heard the other day said that they blow in the streets and people don't even bother to stoop to pick them up.

Their only value now is as novelty items, which is how they are being sold on ebay. You can buy them from several vendors there, as I did, for about $3, including postage.

It's really quite a nice note--except for the completely absurd demonination. It is also a sad testament to what happens when incompetent and corrupt governments destroy the economy of a nation.

Speaking of which, we probably shouldn't laugh too loud at the fate of the Zimbabwean dollar. With the insanely out-of-control spending of the current U.S. administration--only slightly less corrupt and misguided than that of Zimbabwe--virtually certain to produce a recurrence of our own unhappy history with inflation, our currency may also become, in the not-too-distant future, nothing more than a curiosity to be sold on ebay to those in other nations who will own what used to be our wealth.