Poor Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s new 10 million dollar bill is red. One side has the official stamps of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and some meaningless serial numbers. The other is a pastiche of a fish jumping out of a lake and a giant dam in the background. The bill, released for the first time last month, is actually not a proper currency note at all but rather a “bearer check.” Zimbabwe stopped printing real money long ago, when its inflation rate was still at a manageable level. Today these bearer checks are the only currency remaining. Last week in Zimbabwe 10 million dollars could buy exactly two rolls of toilet paper. By now it probably won’t get quite that much.

Read it all here.

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