Talk:Zimbabwean dollar/Archive 3

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

No CATO updates

Ok, now we know why the OMIR isn't updating. Anyone know why there hasn't been an update to the CATO index? It says it is partially based on exchange rates, so perhaps they rely on the OMIR so can't do their calculations now? --Tango (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The CATO numbers were indeed mostly based off of OMIR, so they can't compute them anymore. It's also a bit of an embarrassment for them I think, because the "on-the-ground" inflation is clearly much lower than what CATO listed. --141.157.119.68 (talk) 03:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The page said, "Since mid-November 2008, the weekly update of the HHIZ has been put on hold. The market-based price data from Zimbabwe have deteriorated and, at present, cannot be used to update the HHIZ. HHIZ updates will be resumed as soon as the quality of the data reaches a satisfactory level."Jimm36 (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk on banknotes

It would be grateful if you can direct all banknote-related questions and entries to the talk page of the Banknotes of Zimbabwe article. Thanks! --Marianian (talk) 12:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Zambabwe is made up of many languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.254.237 (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok off topic, go to Languages of Zimbabwe, and most countries have many languages. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 04:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

t.-pengő

$1 billion, $5 billion and $10 billion notes were introduced. There are 10,000 t.-pengő, 50,000 t.pengő and 100,000 t.-pengő with 13 zeros cut.(t.-pengő = 1,000,000 b.-pengő) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.126.122.91 (talk) 14:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

t.-pengő? AFAIK the highest note was 1 billion b.-pengő and even it didn't manage to get into circulation...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

1 milliard b.pengő (billion long scale). 100 million b-pengő however was the highest released. (Note: 1000 t.pengő would be 1 milliard b.pengő) $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 23:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Pengő? Wasn't that the Hungarian currency that hyperinflated? What does that have to do with this article? --Tango (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It is in competition to be the lowesr ever valued currency. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 11:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Official rate

Any ideas why the RBZ is no longer publishing official rates on its website? --Tango (talk) 22:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

No idea, but I did notice a previous edit of this discussion page had some allegedly privately circulated numbers by the RBZ. Given the regularity of the numbers I suspect the RBZ is now applying a mathematical formula that automatically sets the exchange rate but are trying not to stoke the parallel market by publishing figures that admit an ever-weakening Zimbabwe dollar. --24.80.118.164 (talk) 00:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Xe.com does not publish rates too and it is still said "1.00 USD = 925,825.00 ZWD", as they are the rates from the RBZ. 221.126.123.76 (talk) 10:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

There is an article "Zimbabwe dollar abandoned", dated 6th January stating that the dollarisation (or rand-isation) has reached a point that that virtually nobody is using ZWD. For example:

"Almost everyone in the country is now buying and selling in foreign currency, rendering the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless on the domestic market."

"Even bank queues that characterized the daily lives of people last year are disappearing, as more people turn to using either the South African rand or U.S. dollars."

Also here (is this a government newspaper?) "leaving banks with piles of local currency that most people are no longer keen to use" and "adviser to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, .... “By now we need to come up with a new currency as the current one has become meaningless,” he said. The South African rand and the American dollar have almost elbowed the local dollar in most monetary transactions."

Has it reached the point where the ZWD will soon be history? TiffaF (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is an interesting article (dated today, Jan 7th) that mentions the cash rate as 100 billion to 1 and the interbank rate as 98 million to 1. --Composure1 (talk) 18:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been watching Yahoo's currency rate pages and saw it climbing from 925,000 to 14,000,000 lately. Because it's not from the official bank, I didn't post it here. I regret it though, as Yahoo's page only gives me a 5 days archive. Marc NL (talk) 06:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I found a website that appears to still be quoting an official rate on a daily basis. Perhaps it can be used on this page? Market watch. --Composure1 (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's quoting a rate that seems similar to the official rate, it doesn't say what rate it is meant to be and doesn't say where it is getting the numbers from. I don't think it is much use to us. --Tango (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

New official rates were published on the RBZ site today, the rate is now 9,326,444.00 Z$ per US$. Passportguy (talk) 10:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

New cash rate

The new cash rate according to SW Radio Africa is: "ZW$ has given way to US$ and everything is very expensive". Can we include that in our table? --Tango (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really, as it isn't very specific. You could include it in the history text secton though. Passportguy (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I know, that was (at least partially) in jest. It could go in the notes column of the table, I guess. --Tango (talk) 19:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

ISO Code

I noticed the ISO code on the page is listed as "ZWR" after the August 1st devaluation, but is that actually correct? Although ISO did issue them this code, the official Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe website still lists ZWD, and I found no official statements saying they actually switched to ZWR at any point. --Composure1 (talk) 21:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it from this talk page (or maybe it was the images of the notes talk page), the RBZ was unable to incorporate the ISO code change and stuck with an older designation. --24.80.120.179 (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

$20 & $50 billion banknotes coming up

$20,000,000,000 and $50,000,000,000 banknotes will be introduced on Monday. See http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/10/zimbawe.currency/index.html. At current official rates the $50 billion note will be worth more than US$5000 !! I really wonder what the people setting these rates are thinking .... Passportguy (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

That has been covered over at Banknotes of Zimbabwe. As soon as I get the scans I'll put them up. --Marianian (talk) 17:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow! That is 200,000 t.-pengő and 500,000 t.-pengő notes. The RBZ is continue to break record of the highest denomination banknote ever issued. Jimm36 (talk) 08:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

With Mr Gono as head of the bank, I have read some articles indicaing that he intends to keep printing new banknotes for now. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 10:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian denominations are not clear for me - what is highiest denomination in 10^n notation? However Z3$ 50B is only 5*10^23 Z1$ in comparsion with Pi144 Yugoslavian note equals 10^27 Y1D. (Y1D = Dinar 1989) 83.14.232.140 (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The highest Hungarian denomination issued in Pengő was 10²¹ but if we also tak Adópengő (highest denomination 10⁷) then it is 2*10²⁸. --Alexmagnus2 (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree.The 2*10²⁸ pengő note was used for half forint when forint introduced.

Found an article with a photo of the new $50 billion note: Wall Street Journal --Buu (talk) 12:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

There is now a ZW$10 Trillion note ($10,000,000,000,000, or $10¹³), with $20, $50 and $100 Trillion($10¹⁴) "planned"! This is from the Zimbabwe Herald, so it must have been officially announced. I have just added these denominations to the info box in the article.TiffaF (talk) 08:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

At an official rate of ~ 15 million, the $100 trillion note is supposedly worth more than 6,000,000 US$ ! That surely must be a world record for an official rate ! Passportguy (talk) 08:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Which begs the question, for what transactions does the official rate apply? For whom (person or institution) will the RBZ change money ZWD to USD (or vice versa) at this rate? Whoever he/she/they is/are, they could make a killing on arbitrage. I suspect the answer is nobody, so the official rate is purely an official fiction.TiffaF (talk) 08:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not completely fictional, as it is used in some government business. For example : Gold mining companies are paid for their gold (which they must sell to the government) at the official rate. Since the resulting price (paid in Z$ converted from the US$ based gold price at the offcial rate) that yields does not cover costs, many if not most Zimabwean mining companies have ceased production. Naturally the RBZ will not sell you foreign currency at the official rate, it only buys it at that rate. Passportguy (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Mugabe and his cronies can get foreign currency at that rate, I believe, as yes, they can make a killing out of it. The gold companies get part of their money in foreign currency, I think, the rest of converted to Z$ at an nonsense rate (so it worthless) - of course, the RBZ rarely actually gives the gold companies any of the money they are owed, which is why they are all going out of business. --Tango (talk) 15:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Rate

January 7th 2009: Current change US$ vs ZBW $ is: 88,25 Quadrillion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.54.51.150 (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Other sources contradict this. Reuters claim 33 dollars for the new 100 trillion dollar bill. http://af.reuters.com/article/zimbabweNews/idAFLG40666820090116 --OpenFuture (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

New banknotes (again)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7832601.stm. 10 trillion, 20 trillion, 50 trillion and 100 trillion. I wonder why such a gap between 50 billion (currently highest note) and 10 trillion (lowest new one)...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The relaxation of withdrawal restrictions may signal the need for big notes. --Marianian (talk) 14:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think they haver finally realized that there is no point in issuing low denomination notes. People still have quad- and quintillions in their bank accounts and until that money is somehow drained from those accounts the Z$ will never stabilize. Passportguy (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

That article suggests an exchange rate of about Z$3 trillion to US$1 - that's several orders of magnitude higher than our table currently shows. Should we consider that a reliable rate and update it? I think we're at the point when there aren't really any reliable rates since the rate changes so rapidly and, with the economy almost completely dollarised, the trading volume for forex must be pretty low (relative to the speed it's changing). --Tango (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

How did the people get quintillions in their bank accounts? What kind of interest rates are they paying? Heian-794 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what interest rates regular bank accounts pay (a few hundred percent, I think, so effectively nothing), but you used to be able to get stupid rates of return on the stock market before it was shut down. And remember, people have been receiving large sums of money in wages (while the public sector may be paying next to nothing much of the time, I believe much of the private sector has pegged wages to the USD or similar) while only being able to withdraw a minuscule portion of it, so they've all been saving up. Quintillions may be rare, but I expect quadrillions is very common. --Tango (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

People still have massive amounts of money back from when the stock market was still open. People were paying quintillions & hexillions, so anyone who sold their stocks before the stock market was shut down will have huge sums in their bank accounts. Passportguy (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

New Banknotes & Withdrawal Limits Increased

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/zimbabwe-cash-withdrawal-limit-banks

$50 million and $100 million notes introduced. Wow. Looks like the zeros are "knocking on the Governor's door" again. --24.80.126.85 (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Issuing new denominations and increasing withdrawal limits is even more useless now that it used to be - the withdrawal limits are the only thing giving the Zimbabwean dollar value, so you increase then you just decrease the value. So far, the devaluation hasn't matched the increased withdraw limits (withdrawing limits went up 20 times, the exchange rate only 5 times), but we'll see what happens over the next couple of days. I wouldn't be surprised if inflation (which I think is essentially equal to exchange rate devaluation now) completely wipes out the increased withdrawal limits within the next week. --Tango (talk) 12:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You know, it's a Catch-22. Zimbwabweans need money, even if it's great gobs of the stuff, to shop (when they can) and go to jobs (if the companies have not folded up), but the RBZ is well aware by now that they're only adding to the problem by printing more money. So prices go up, Zimbabweans naturally insist on more money to get, and prices go up, and... well, you get the idea. I noticed that the exchange rate on the cash market (which IMO is a better handle on inflation since it measures what Zimbabweans think their currency is worth relative to harder currencies) has started to spike up, so I wonder if this might be the last gasp of the Zimbabwe dollar before they decide as a final measure to simply adopt the South African Rand as the legal currency - a variation on Ecuador's solution. --24.80.120.179 (talk) 05:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If they adopt the Rand (or US dollar or anything else) the ruling elite will suddenly have no money, so they are unlikely to do that. I'm not sure it would work anyway - is there enough foreign currency in circulation for everyone to use it? With no exports, it's difficult to get any foreign currency into the country (people abroad sending money to their families is the only way, really). --Tango (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There will be a $200 million bank note issued shortly. Btw there is a nice picture of the $100 million note at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iu66soJbsRg6i1pCqVacQzO_Dt3Q

Passportguy (talk)

$10 billion note introduced.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/12/19/zimbawe.currency/index.html?eref=rss_latest

This is absolutely nuts. I think the withdrawal limits were raised as well. --142.90.99.60 (talk) 13:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The note worth more than 10801 USD on official rate of Thursday,more than the Salmon Portland Chase note (the 10000 USD note),would be the second highest value banknote ever issued.Oops! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.18.99 (talk) 11:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

$100 billion note also introduced. This note is only worth one US dollar on the black market.Jimm36 (talk) 08:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

$100 Billion or $100 trillion? Rubycored (talk) 03:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Worst inflation ever (?)

I've been trying to ascertain which the worst inflation ever was. There are two candiates : The Hungarian pengő and the Z$. There are a number of question which arose :

1) What was the final exchange rate of the pengő to the forint. The wikipedia article says 4*10²⁹ and is widely quoted around the internet. However the Encyclopaedia Britannica [1] states that the rate was 400 quintillion, i.e. 4*10²⁰. I can't find another source on the internet which is reliable. Possibly someone has other printed dictionaries at home and can look this up ?

Factoring in the fact that the forint was worth 4 times as much as the pre-inflation pengő, the total hyperinflationary effect was 1.6*10³⁰ or 1.6*10²¹ respectively.

2) The Z$ currently stands at a rate of 1.3*10²⁶ Z1$ for one 1US$ - taking into account that the pre-hyperinflation rate was roughly 50 Z$ to 1 US$, the hyperinflationary effect is 2.6*10²⁴.

However listed stock prices are still in the quadrillion Z3$, i.e. octillions of Z1$ (e.g. [2] or [3]). If the stock market is dollarized, how does one take the fact into account that quadrillions are essentially being exchanged for one US dollar ??

Passportguy (talk) 16:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

What stock market? Wasn't it closed down? You need to be careful measuring inflation by currency devaluation, since that depends on how long the currency was inflating too. Usually hyperinflations are ranked by their peak inflation. We have no useful figures for the peak inflation in Zimbabwe (although, presumably it hasn't peaked). --Tango (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll try and explain that : Currenty the ZSE is considering reopening and trading in US$. The last price for African Sun was 15 quadrillion Z$. Let's assume that the current value of the stock on the London stock exchange is the equivalent of 1 US$. If trading were to resume tomorrow in US$, the price in Harare would also be around 1 US$. Thus, if you bought one share of African Sun on Nov 22, you have gotten 1 US$ for 15 quadrillion Z$. Given the fact that the current cash rate is 15 trillion, this amounts to a defacto currency revaluation for stock/bond Zim Dollars of 1000:1.

This problem may indeed be the reason the ZSE may not reopen until the cash value of the Z$ finally reaches quadrillions, which at current inflation rates should be in 3-4 weeks.

Perhaps. The stock market exchange rate was massively inflated by market manipulations (which were possible because it was such a meaningless rate since no-one accepted anything other than cash for transactions and you couldn't turn your shares into cash), they can't just turn it back on again and let it carry on as it was. --Tango (talk) 19:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Btw : I would dispute that hyperinflations are ranked by their peak inflation rate. The measure of that varies hugely, depending on how small/large the time increments are that you choose. It could conceivibly be daily, weeky, fortnightly, monthly, trimesterly, yearly etc. Depending on which you choose, you'd get very different results on which hyperflation was the worst in history. Usually people look at the overall effect of a complete hyperinflationary period from the time a currecy goes into hyperinflation until it finally reaches stablity again. Thus we refer to the Yugoslav hyperinflation (90s), Hungarian hy. (45/46), German hy. (22/23) etc., not to the "German Mark hyperinflation 2nd week of August 1922". But naturally, if you wish, you could rank anything by any method you choose. Passportguy (talk) 19:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you get very difference results? Obviously you need to use the same time period with each currency, but is the ranking by month-on-month inflation (say) different from the ranking by day-by-day inflation (say)? If you try annual inflation, you may get a problem since some hyperinflations don't last much more than a year, but I think a month or less will give pretty much the same rankings. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I just want to repeat my question under 1). Does anyone have a source for this figure ?? Passportguy (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Could it be some kind of confusion with the names of numbers? Quintillion is how much in the Encyclopaedia Britannica? 10¹⁸ or 10³⁰? HumphreyW (talk) 09:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

That's what I assumed at first too. However a long-scale 400 quintillion would be (4x10³²) which would translate into 400 nonillion on the short scale, not 400 octillion (4x10²⁹) ! So there would still a discrepancy. The long scale equivalent of 4x10²⁹ is 400 quadrillard/400 thousand quadrillion. Passportguy (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Huge jump in official rate

I noticed the official rate on the Wikipedia page has not been updated recently, but the RBZ website is still posting daily updates. It's interesting to note that since yesterday the value jumped almost tenfold! Yesterday it was 44 million yesterday, and now it says 415,888, 889. [4]. I wonder if they are planning on soon having it match the old OMIR rate, which would allow them to dollarize and reopen the stock market. --Composure1 (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the RBZ site is almost constantly down, which is making it hard to update the official rates. The rate you quoted (415,888,889.00) was for Jan 26 ? I'll add that to the main page then.

But even at the new rate, the official rate is still only 1/100,000th of the parallel rate (40 trillion), so it is still completely ridiciulous.

As for a the stock market re-opening, there was an article on zimbabwesituation today that negotiations over the re-opening had broken down, as the government is apparently not willing to allow trading in US dollars. Passportguy (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't load the above site and it said, "HTTP 500 內部伺服器發生錯誤" then I can't find them Jimm36 (talk) 15:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Today's official rate is 1,407,917,306 - which is roughly three times what it was yesterday. Passportguy (talk) 23:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

And today it's 3,429,836,806; slightly over twice again. The guess that they are trying to get the official rate to have some connection to reality to be able to open markets again seems reasonable. --OpenFuture (talk) 11:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

At this rate, it will still take weeks to catch up... --Tango (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo! Finance (both the UK and US sites) have trouble with displaying the currency rate (OR the Central Bank has slashed a dozen zeros): here Marc NL (talk) 18:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It said, "1 USD = 1,515.1 ZWD as of 30 Jan" 221.126.122.13 (talk) 07:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

New source for the exchange rate - the UN

Today's Zimbabwe Herald, in its article on the new budget states "The United Nations exchange rate will apply where conversion to Zimdollar or vice versa may be necessary.". If you google "United Nations exchange rate" you end up at the UN site here, which includes excel spreadsheets with the following rates:

01 Jan 2009: 35,000,000,000,000,000

29 Jan 2009: 150,000,000,000,000,000

These rates exceed by 3 zeroes the 30-40,000,000,000,000 (30-40 trillion) the most recent sources quote as black-market rates. Should we now quote these as "Official" rates? TiffaF (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this ! We can't call them official rate, as the only official rate is set by the RBZ, even though in practical terms that rate has very limited value.

As for the UN rate : I've back-checked these rates, and it somewhat seems to be a continuation of the OMIR/non-cash rates. I'll but it into the main article in the former "OMIR" column. Passportguy (talk) 12:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Inflation estimate

We can now get a pretty good inflation estimate based on the bank notes. Lets (optimistically!) assume that on January 1st, the 10 billion banknote will be worth the same as the Z$100 banknote that was released immediately after the devaluation on January 1st. So in 5 months, the value of the currency decreased by a factor of 100 million. Extrapolating this to a year (divide by 5, multiply by 12), we get about 10 quintillion. Since inflation is expressed in percents, that gives us an annual inflation rate of 1 sextillion percent. Now, keep in mind that this is based on the "average" inflation over the past 5 months. Recently it has been even higher, so if one were to extrapolate the inflation from just the past month for example, the annual rate would be much higher. 38.105.141.161 (talk) 15:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

From the unofficial exchange rates given in articles that mention new banknotes, it seems like the inflation during the last month has been around 35% per day. (500 million = 8 dollars on December 12th, 10 billion = 20 dollars on December 19th, 100 trillion = 33 dollars on January 16th). --OpenFuture (talk) 08:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

And on January the 20th, it's 400 trillion per dollar. [5] That's slightly above 400% per day since the 17th. --OpenFuture (talk) 02:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure the last figure is correct, as the article you linked says that "On the black market, the Zimbabwean dollar is trading at $40 000 000 000 to the South African rand." That is billion not 40 trillion and would translate into a rate of roughly 400 billion to the US$. However 400 billion isn't nearly right for the 20th, when rates were already closer to 4 trillion, so maybe the article got their zeros mixed up ?? Passportguy (talk) 08:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right, I was tired and thought trillion when I saw that. That's 400 billion, which is only one seventh of the quote 3 days before. That the currency would suddenly deflate when it stops getting used seems unlikely, so some of these numbers are reasonably incorrect. This means that the pengő is likely to still have the day to day record of inflation, with prices doubling each 15 hours. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

No worries. With all of these billions, trillions and quadrillions I get the numbers mixed up all the time. Passportguy (talk) 15:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Long term, the inflation for the last 6 months has gone from approximately 40 to 40x10¹². That suggests we can add two zero each month. Thus: 100x100^months% inflation (10¹⁴% since August 2008), gives an annual rate of 10²⁶%. I prefer to use long term based figures. Short unsustained fluctuations are hardly accurate or representative of anything in reality. Also I prefer not to name the numbers due to the possibility of confusion over which name scale is being used. HumphreyW (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

With thursdays article [6] claiming 100 trillion per dollar, we have a rate of around 42% since the 19th. Which is close enough to the 35% value above. The 400 trillion stands out from this series. Inflation seem to be 35-40% per day. It's still nowhere near Hungarian numbers, but it has on the other hand been hyperinflation for two years now, and the Pengő only lasted one year. Despite way lower inflation rates, the total increase under hyperinflation is around 3x10²²%, and the Hungarian total inflation seems to have been around 4.5x10²⁸. Althogh that's a whopping million times difference, at 35%/day inflation rate that will only take 46 days to reach. And it also indicates that the doubling and tripling of official rates is an attempt to catch up, not because the real inflation rate has mushroomed. That is probably good news as it indicates a willingness to face facts that has been very lacking so far. --OpenFuture (talk) 13:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone

Even if we assume that the 4x10²⁹ exchange figure for the forint is correct - which I still can't find a source for btw ! - then the Z$ has leveled with the pengő in terms for zeros : Taking the UN rate of 1.5x10¹⁷ + the Z2$ zeros (1x10¹⁰) + the Z1$ zeros (1x10³), the rate in terms of Z1$ is now 1.5x10³⁰.
However, in terms of inflationary effect the pengő still has a slight edge, as the forint has only a quarter of the value of a pre-hyperinflation pengő, while a Z4$ introduced at above rate would be worth roughly 50 times a Z1$ of 2003. Thus, the inflationary effect, adjusted for these values, for the pengő stands at 1.6x10³⁰, while the Zimbabwe Dollar is "only" at 3x10²⁸. However, after price controls are scrapped on Sunday, we're almost certain to finally reach the Hungarian record in the coming weeks. Passportguy (talk) 13:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

What is the current exchange rate in terms of the first dollar? i.e. the one that was equal to US$1 at an earlier point. 83.146.12.192 (talk) 20:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The current UN exchange rate in terms of Z1$ is 1.5 nonillion (1.5x10³⁰ or 1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). For cash it is "only" 1 octillion or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Passportguy (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Highest valued currency unit

I would say at the moment of late 2,Feb.,the RBZ's official 4th dollar rate is 0.012336416667 to 1 USD.It is truely highest valued currency unit in the world.The rate went up to 22 to 1 USd at 3,Feb. is another story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.137.151.250 (talk) 00:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The 12.3 billion rate was the last rate of the Z3$. The 12.3 billion Z3$ rate was never re-issued for the Z4$, the Z4$ never become the highest valued currency. Instead a new rate was issued on Feb 3 at 22.00, a massive devaluation to get the rate more in line with the real value of the currency. Passportguy (talk) 10:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like an almost 1800-fold devaluation between the 2nd and 3rd February. Is that a record change for a currency in one day? Tonybourtonville (talk) 11:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Could well be. But since the official rate is almost meaningless for ordinary people anyway, I'm not getting too excited. The official rate is used primarily as a means to tax companies (which get worthless Zim$ for their foreign currency) and to make people that are well-connected with the government rich (see [7] for details on how the latter works) 11:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

On the same day 2,Feb.,the RBZ announced the fourth dollar and took effect immediately after they set the official rate of the third dollar.Because the RBZ did not set the rate for the fourth dollar,at the moment the official rate for the third dollar had to be automatically converted into the fourth dollar.So the rate was 1.2 cent to 1 USD before they set at 22 on 3,Feb.If the announcement of RBZ set the reform date as "3,Feb.",or "the next day",or "till the coming official rate be set",you are absolutely correct.If RBZ did not set the rate for the fourth dollar on 3,Feb. or even unset untill next month,now the rate for the fourth dollar is still 1.2 cent.The fourth dollar maintained the highest valued currency unit for almost one complete day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.20.46 (talk) 12:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

You're confusing two things. 1) "Immediate effect" does not necessarily mean that second. A couple of hours is still faily immediate in political terms. 2) The RBZ never officially converted the old official rate into a new one for the Z4$. I.e. for the first few hours there was no official rate, until it was set at 22 US$, which was 2 $ more than the official rate target of $20 which had been announced at the same time the currency revaluation had been announced. But that $20 figure is also not an official rate, as it has not been published as such by the RBZ, which only has one official rate for the 2nd, at that is the last one for the Z3$. 12:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The "immediate effect" is a legal term.The announcement took effect while the announcement was done.If the announcement sited its own time to take effect,then the "immediate" was the sited moment.In this case,the RBZ did not need to do the convert thing,they were already converted by the announcement.If the RBZ showed the converted rate at the same announcement or showed the rate at the same time,which would be only a confirmation.If the RBZ set a different rate at the moment,that would be a legal change of the official rate(and it would also be a confirmation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.20.46 (talk) 13:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are mistaken. There is no such thing as "immediate effect" in legal terms. Laws and regulations come into force after a legal process, at the end of which they are published in the official gazette. Politicians use the term "immediate effect" quite often to denote that they want a law or regulation to come into effect as soon as possible. Btw : If you took everything politicians say to have legal effect, then you'd have an official rate of $20 for the 2nd, as that was proclaimed in the same statement as the "immediate effect" revaluation. Passportguy (talk) 13:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is a legal term.The announcement is allgemeinverfügung(sorry I don' know how to translate into English),which takes effect when it's done,if no exact time sited.The term is to decribe such situation.It's true that gazettes always publish laws and regulations,sometimes verfügung oder verwaltungsverfüngung or even verwaltungsakt are included.However not all published stuff take effect at the moment the gazette issued.Gazette is to confirm government really did or is doing or will do things described.It's very often that a law or regulation regulates the time or specific style needed to take effect(maybe we can find a Zimbabwe gazette to study this topic).And the $20,I read most related news(sorry I cannot even connect to RBZ),is what government expect,not allgemeinverfügung and not law or regulation.In brief,the announcement is not only politician's word.It has legal effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.20.46 (talk) 15:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

You do realise that even in Germany currency revaluation require more than a ministrial directive, don't you ? And apparently you also do not know that even in Germany, laws only come into effect upon being published in the Bundesanzeiger (or similar gazettes for state level laws).

This is the last post I'm going to make on this subject, as the entire argument is completely mute anyway as the official rate does not represent anything near the actual value of the currency and this discussion does not have any value for this article. Passportguy (talk) 15:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Ministrial directive is inner-government affair,has no effect like verwaltungsakt.We don't know whether Zimbabwe government did it or not and we don't need to.Only thing we can now comply is the announcement,which is allgemeinverfügung.

Not all country issue gazette.To the countries issue gazette,it's always correct that laws and regulations shall be published in gazette before take effect.It's an important due process.However,the revaluation was not made in style of law and regulation,but allgemeinverfügung.

I am sorry for that.Such discussion should happen in legal articals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.20.46 (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

New banknotes

http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/117/ARTICLE/4223/2009-02-02.html gives details of the baknotes, which will be $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500. The new $500 banknote is equal to $500 trillion Z3$. Passportguy (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

FYI : The RBZ has published a picture featuring the new notes at http://www.rbz.co.zw/pdfs/newnotes.jpg Passportguy (talk) 16:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I like how the values (numbers in the middle of the notes) are right-justified so that they can easily use many, many digits. All the zeroes on the Z3$ bills were starting to get really cramped! Heian-794 (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess they're finally prepared this time to issue Z4$s in quadrillions of dollars this time eh?Rubycored (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The new $500 dollar note is on the banknotes article. --Marianian (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

If Zimbabwe hadn't revalued its dollar...

Here's a brief calculation experiment I just made. Let's imagine Zimbabwe hadn't revalued its dollar at all. I go out for a beer in central Harare and decide to pay in cash. In 1 cent coins. The beer costs 5 €. At the current rates, 5 € = 2000 Zimbabwe dollars if I pay in cash. That's $2\times 10^{28}$ old (2006) Zimbabwe dollars, or $2\times 10^{30}$ old Zimbabwe cents. Let's assume, for the sake of simplicity, that 1 Zimbabwe cent coin has the same mass as 1 Euro cent coin, i.e. about 1.5 g. The total mass of all these coins is then $3\times 10^{27}$ kg, or about 1.58 times the mass of Jupiter. JIP | Talk 16:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Even if we're less extreme and pay in Z$1 coins, which I'll assume are 5g each (a little less than a €1 coin, to give them the benefit of the doubt), we have 2x10²⁸ coins of 5g each, that's 10²⁶kg or almost precisely the mass of Neptune. Lovely! --Tango (talk) 18:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Parallel rate for Z4$

Does anyone have a new parallel rate for the Z4$ ? I haven't actually seen any new quotes for the dollar for a week now. If the official rate is any indication (+ 10% p.d.), the parallel rates should be around $500 dollars now. The official rate is clearly not a market based calculation of the value (as was promised), as it gets devalued by almost exactly 10 % per day (except on the 5th, where it curiously was devalued by 20 %). Given the fact that in the past the official rate was adjusted significantly slower than the parallel rate devalued, we may well be at $1000 also. Passportguy (talk) 12:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

At least they are devaluing by the same *percentage* every day now, rather than the same absolute amount as they were before. The parallel rate has shown double-exponential growth in the past, though, so it could still be growing far faster than the official rate. --Tango (talk) 13:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Another twelve zeroes knocked off

Reuters is reporting that another 12 zeroes have been knocked off the Zimdollar. —Raven42 (talk) 14:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Here we go into round 4 ! With Sunday's parallel rate at 250 trillion [8], we are back at "only" 250 Z4$ to the US$.

Although I'm a bit confused, as they published an official rate of 12,336,416,667 today - surely that can' be Z4$ ! When does this take effect, today or tomorrow ? Passportguy (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Btw : Obviously the Z4$ is curently not the world lesast valued curency. Anyone want to risk a prediction when it'll be again ? Although - on second thought - taking the UN rate, it still is, that rate is still at 150,000 : 1. Passportguy (talk) 15:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This makes Z3$ the shortest surviving currency in Zimbabwean history (lifetime=6 months). But not in the world history (where the record belongs to Yugoslav 1994 dinar, which survived just for three weeks - maybe there were some currencies with a shorter lifespan but this one holds a record among those which "died" of inflation). I guess this record will never be broken in Zimbabwe, as monetary policy statements are published once in 6 months...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

There have been very short lived currencies, but previously they've all been intentionally short lived, haven't they? Introducing an interim currency in order to fix hyperinflation is a well known technique. Z3$ was never intended to be an interim currency. My bet is that nothing particularly interesting will happen with Z4$, now USD can be used legally no-one is going to be using the Zim$. The exchange rate will skyrocket, since there will be no demand for the currency, but it will be meaningless number since nothing will be for sale in Zim$. --Tango (talk) 15:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Gono has conconcted some interesting new measures [9] to keep the Z4$ going.

The ZSE will be allowed to trade in foreign currency, but will be subject to a 1.5 % tax plus the stipulation that a further 3.5 % of all sales be exchanged into Z4$ at the ridiculous interbank exchange rate (which at today's rate values 1 Z4$ at more than 8 US$ !)
"Purchase of goods in foreign exchange vouchers" are to be introduced, whatever that may be. Passportguy (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The government doesn't have enough foreign currency to pay people in US dollars, so they are falling back on their standard approach - printing more. I suspect we'll end up with separate prices for vouchers and real dollar bills, since the value of the vouchers is dependant on the government's ability to exchange them for US dollars (I'm not sure what the system will be for such redemption, but the designated shops must have some way to turn them into actual money). If people don't have faith in the government being able to pay them back, the vouchers will have less than face-value. My prediction - in a month's time, a US$1 voucher will be worth 40 US cents. --Tango (talk) 17:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't get this: at the official rate that would be 1.2 cents, and since it came into force with immediate effect it could be the highest valued currency unit. --Marianian (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

So we're now in the situation where the Zimbabwean dollar is both the highest and lowest valued currency unit, depending on which exchange rate you take? I love Zimbabwe! --Tango (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This official rate is not a real rate but it's highly overvalued that it should not be included in the list, although 1 Kuwaiti dinar = 41 637 696 324 ZWR or 4.2 cents in new currency. Jimm36 (talk) 10:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Gono apparently has realized that the official rate was getting ridiculous and has set today's rate at 22.00 Z4$, which is still less than 10 % of the last parallel rate but at least it's an improvement from the 0.004 % on the 2nd ! Passportguy (talk) 10:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't seem to find anything about a new ISO code, and can't even think of a new third letter that would make sense! ("New" and "Revalued" have been used; some kind of sequential thing using A, B, C... wouldn't work as the 4th letter of the alphabet is "D". There's no other dollar-using country with a name that starts with Z, so maybe they could lose the W in the middle and go to something like "ZDD" (Zimbabwe Dollar, D-Series), to be followed by ZDE or ZED if a 5th dollar is needed? (A better idea would surely be to stop using the name "dollar" and call the ever-collapsing currency something else!) Heian-794 (talk) 13:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

An even better idea would be to stop printing excessive amounts of money... --Tango (talk) 13:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Naw. That's wouldn't be much fun now would it ? Plus certain people in the government would no longer stand to gain from buying Zim$ at black market rates and selling them back to their own central bank at official rates. Passportguy (talk) 13:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

How about "ZWF" (Zimbabwe dollar - Fourth Series). However this is largely mute, as ZWR and ZWN never came into use either. Passportguy (talk) 13:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

But then what will they do when a 5th dollar is born? "Fourth" and "fifth" both start with F! I suppose we should be thankful that hyperinflation isn't common enough in the world that the ISO has come up with standard names for multiple revisions of currency! Heian-794 (talk) 13:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

How about Argentina and Brazil? they had 5 or 6 revaluations in THEIR hyperinflation :P Rubycored (talk) 08:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I've found the UN calling it ZWL, no idea where that comes from. --Tango (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The Zimbabwe dollar has now been revalued by a total factor of $10^{22}$ over half a year. That's about the same as revaluing it 4642 times every month, or revaluing it 1.32 times every day. JIP | Talk 06:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Erm, how to you get 10²² for the last 6 months? It has had 12 zeros removed to go from ~50 to ~20 (i.e. 50x10⁰ to 20x10¹²). I make that only ~10¹² HumphreyW (talk) 07:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

They knocked 10 zeros off, then 12, 10+12=22. I don't know what you mean by it going from 50 to 20 - they've just removed zeros, they haven't divided by anything that wasn't a power of 10. --Tango (talk) 10:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Z4$ - virtual or real?

Does anybody know wheather there is any signifficant circullation of Z4$? There is no new market rate from 1st day of circullation, there is no denominations... Is there the end of Zimbudollar? 83.14.232.140 (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've not read about anyone actually using Zim dollars in quite a while... Even the US dollar is pretty worthless, since the banks don't have any for people with money in their foreign currency accounts to withdraw, which makes no sense to me - the only way I can see that happening is if Mugabe and Gono have taken to printing US dollars now their dollar is worthless and since, of course, they don't have the necessary printing presses they can't back up their artificially increased bank balances. They are trying to use US dollar vouchers instead, but those are only backed by government promises just like the Zim dollar, so they are also worthless. --Tango (talk) 20:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a chat forum, please limit discussions to how to improve the content of the article and not giving financial advice to Zimbabwe. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Trying to work out whether the subject of the article exists in any meaningful sense seems relevant to me. --Tango (talk) 12:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This article pretty much confirms it. --Tango (talk) 12:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the Overall Effects of Inflation of the Currency of Zimbabwe vs. the Currency of Hungary and All Time Inflation Records

In Hungary: the Austro-Hungarian Korona was worth about one-fifth of a US Dollar at the beginning of WWI. It was replaced at par with the Hungarian Korona. The Hungarian Korona was replaced by the Pengő at a rate of 1.25x10⁴. The Pengő was replaced by the Forint at a rate of 4x10²⁹ and the Forint pegged at 11.74 to the US Dollar. Now the exchange rate is approximately 220 to the US Dollar, or 2x10² compared to its starting rate. So the overall effect of inflation has been 2x10³⁵.

In Zimbabwe: the first Zim Dollar was worth approximately that of the US Dollar at independence. It was replaced by the second Zim Dollar at a rate of 1x10³. The second Zim Dollar was replaced by the third Zim Dollar at a rate of 1x10¹⁰. The third Zim Dollar was replaced by the fourth Zim Dollar at a rate of 1x10¹². The most recent parallel rate listed is 3x10² and the UN rate is 1.5x10⁵. So the overall effect of inflation has been 3x10²⁷ or 1.5x10³⁰.

Therefore the Zim Dollar needs to lose at least another 5 zeroes from the stated UN rate to break the overall record Hungary's national currencies currently have.

72.209.178.106 (talk) 22:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

RIP Zimbabwe dollar (1980~2009)??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7859033.stm

Looks like Zim$ is walking into history for once and for all. Rubycored (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

We can except the exchange rate to skyrocket now - demand for Zimbabwean dollars is going to drop to pretty much nothing, and supply will presumably keep increasing since Mugabe's regime doesn't know any better, so basic supply and demand says the value of a Zim$ will drop substantially. I predict at least half a dozen noughts will be added on over the next month. --Tango (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll keep on the tabs for the new notes, even if they issue an infinity dollar note. --Marianian (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Y True: The currency has been suspended (see below). It is being considered that the banknotes page be renamed to Historical Paper Money of Zimbabwe to tell apart from the successors, if there is any. --Marianian (talk) 19:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

New inflation rate

According to SWRadio:

Zim inflation rate according to financial magazine, Forbes Asia is 6500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% 65 followed by 107 zeros. Prices double every 24.7 hours

This figure looks like 6.5 Quinquatrigintillion to me; or if you prefer: 6.5 35-illion!, though articles I have read stated the figure to be "6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion" which is 6.5 (16+19)-illion, looks like not many people know about vingintillion and beyond!

Is this fact right? I checked the citation and there's no mention of such a large number. And common sense says otherwise.darkfeline 07:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberdupo56 (talk • contribs)

Prices doubling once every 24.7 hours seems reasonable. That's far from the Hungerian Pengö that at it's worst had prices doubling every 13.5 hours. And it does indeed add upp to approximately 6.5E108 percent of inflation (I get it to 6.8E108, actually). --OpenFuture (talk) 08:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Though I would like to see how they actually calculated that rate., since with my calculation; assuming that prices has been doubling at exactly 24 hour intervals, takes more than a year days to achieve! (368.15 days to be exact) Rubycored (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

A doubling every 24.7 hours means it doubles 354.9... times a year. 2^354.9 = 6.84E106 which means 6.84E108 percent. So it works out. --OpenFuture (talk) 08:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Huh. That's equivalent to a monthly rate of... 79.6 billion percent, which happens to be the last monthly rate from the Hanke index. So they've extrapolated from that, which is absurd, and the figures it's based on are irrelevant anyway. Oh dear. —Raven42 (talk) 08:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

358.15 days is less than a year... A year is 365 days... --Tango (talk) 10:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

whoops; typoed it from 368... Rubycored (talk) 10:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's only marginally longer than a year, and considering you rounded 24.7 down to 24, it seems to be within your margin of error. --Tango (talk) 12:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I like to compute the inflation using the banknotes in circulation as a reference, as in terms of "on the ground" prices, it's when there is more money in circulation that prices actually go up. For example, assuming on February 1st the 100 Trillion bill will be worth as much as the 10 Billion bill was on January 1st, that's an increase of 10,000X monthly (i.e. 1 million percent inflation per month). So yearly that's 10,000^12 times increase, so 1 followed by 48 zeroes (in percentage terms it's 10^50 percent). --Composure1 (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Banknotes (especially in the case of Zimbabwe), aren't really a good indication of inflation rates, and they are issued pretty much a whim.

However the figures you quoted get pretty close, as in terms of prices, the Irish times [10] states that in the last two weeks bread prices rose from 30 billion to 30 trillion. That would correspond to a semi-monthly rate of 100,000 %, a monthly inflation rate of 100,000,000 % and an annual rate of a whopping 1x10⁷⁴ %, or a 100 trevingtillion percent. Passportguy (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Can't get it off category - Circulating currencies

Hi, I've looked everywhere in the article syntax but I cannot find a way to take the article off the Category "Circulating currencies". The currency has been abandoned for nearly two years. Can anyone help? Thanks. --Marianian^(talk) 18:23, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

{{Currencies of Africa}} inserts Category:Circulating currencies (the template creates the "Currencies of Africa" navigation box at the bottom of the article). Removing that template would remove the category and Category:Currencies of Africa. Also see List of circulating currencies. Johnuniq (talk) 02:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Done I've managed to add a parser function to allow category opt-out and that means the article gets to keep the navbox! --Marianian^(talk) 21:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Zim$ "not coming back soon"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7995882.stm

Well; looks like there will be nothing of Zim$ goodness at least until 2010 now Rubycored (talk) 22:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

So, Z$ is finally officially declared dead. Still, I never heard of any country forbidding use of the own currency before...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Ironic isn't it? At first it was "forced" Legal Tender (when they were opposed to using foreign currencies), and now it's illegal Tender! Rubycored (talk) 20:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Has its use been forbidden? I haven't seen that anywhere. --Tango (talk) 14:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

To use a technical economic term, the Zim dollar - along with the entire country - is intercoursed. 76.187.170.128 (talk) 05:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Since the fourth Zim dollar is effectively terminated, the introductory part of this article seems somewhat out of date. Perhaps we should throw in something along the lines defunct or indefinitely suspended. --Jmk (talk) 12:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering the current state, it may be wise to change to past tense and in the event of the dollar being reintroduced, this article moved to Historical currencies of Zimbabwe. --Marianian^(talk) 08:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I've got a 100 Trillion Zimbabwean dollar note... if it ever does make a come back I am set for life! Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 20:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

There something going on here I don't understand. Once money becomes worth less than the paper it is printed on, is there any point to keeping track of the rate of inflation? Or is this just people playing with calculators for fun? c.pergiel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.211.16 (talk) 00:49, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

At least it exercises our brains! ;-) On the serious side, it is important to know how bad the hyperinflation was. --Marianian^(talk) 10:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Design: what those rocks represent?

I'm looking at the article and see no mention of the design. What are those rocks on the money? A Zimbabwe landscape feature? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.205.215.23 (talk) 16:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Addressed: I've added a short explanation and a citation. --Marianian^(talk) 16:21, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

External links

In external links, there were a whole series of newspaper articles and commentaries which I've removed - if they are relevant, useful, they should be cited in the text not just dumped in external links - see WP:ELNO1. In case anyone wants to use the links to improve the article, I'm posting them here:

Babakathy (talk) 12:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

"True dollar"?

Have removed a statement that the Zimbabwean dollar is not a "true" dollar like the US/Canadian dollar because it is not derived from the Spanish piece of eight, as it was unsourced and the etymologies I have seen derive "dollar" from the german "taler". As such the US/Canadian dollars are no more "true" than the Zimbabwean, whatever that means, since they also borrowed the term from an unrelated but similar form of currency. Se, eg, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dollar&searchmode=term

The suggestion that a currency is not a "true dollar" is entirely fanciful. "Dollar" is just a word for a currency, with no other meaning.Royalcourtier (talk) 03:08, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Origins of "Dollar"

The suggestion that "dollar" was chosen instead of pounds because the "the reduced value of the new unit correlated more closely to the value of the US dollar than it did to the pound sterling" is entirely unreferenced and improbable. Any number of currency titles could have been chosen. Dollar is a common one. Pounds was probably dropped because of the perceived need to break from the past currency. I suggest deleting the reference to the motivation unless a properly sourced and referenced reason can be given.Royalcourtier (talk) 03:11, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Zimbabwean Bond Coins.

Check this out; [11]

The Zimbabwean Bond Coins are denominated as 1 Cent, 5, 10, and 25 Cents. The currency that is being expressed is in American Dollars - (202.89.141.109 (talk) 05:10, 6 December 2014 (UTC))

Hi, I do not believe that this is the return of the local dollar: I think that the coins are local versions of the US dollar, although I do not know why they did not import actual US coins. Thoughts? --Marianian^(talk) 21:27, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There was an attempt to import in American coins, but as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is under sanctions, the attempted importation was scuppered.

Can someone please put a notice on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zimbabwean_Bond_Coins ?

Trying to import in coins is pretty expensive, and a lot of coins is pretty heavy.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe decided the next best thing was to get the Zimbabwean Bond Coins struck in Pretoria at the South African Mint. - (202.89.141.109 (talk) 06:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC))

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Fear of reintroduction of the Zimbabwean dollar

Since 18 December 2014 there has been an increasing loss of confidence in the banking sector by the locals. This has resulted in major bank runs as many locals fear the reintroduction of the scrapped Zimbabwean dollar. Local market stalls, traders and supermarkets have rejected the coins that were supposed to aid the shortage of coins and small change. As a result liquidity in the banking has dried up resulting in long lines at the banks for people by people who want to withdrew their cash. In 2016 Zimbabwe is experiencing a worsening cash shortage, so the government has brought in new measures aimed at halting the flow of US dollars going out of the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btec233 (talk • contribs) 05:06, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

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Copy Edit March 2017

I have responded to the July 2016 request for a copy edit. This article was a bit of a mess, with a huge amount of information that was out of date and not relevant to a wiki article. Major changes include:

Removed all cases where the long lists of de-valuation were repeated. There were a significant number. Where possible I moved appropriate citations to the one section where this was listed.
Removed excessive information regarding hyperinflation that is better covered in its own article.
Removed excessive information regarding bank notes that are better covered in their own article
Generally converted the article from a 'blow-by-blow' account of the economic problems to readable prose.

This edit has removed a significant amount of work from the article, but I believe makes it better and more encyclopedic. As always I am open to discussion if you disagree. Stingray Trainer (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Comedy

Is this article supposed to be this funny? I mean, I'm sure people are starving there and all and I shouldn't really laugh, but damn, this is comedy gold. --Simboyd (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:01, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_troll%3F

Not sure if irony is defined by my responding. Decided I didn't care. Stingray Trainer (talk) 20:56, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Why does the inflation occur?

There is only a brief mention of the fact that the Zim bank announced an increase of the money supply. A paragraph stating exactly how this occurs, and what the people responsible think they are doing, would be welcome.

I see also that the government defines 'inflation' as higher prices, and that this was part of the rationale for price controls. This could be incorporated into a description of the various government explanations for the country's financial crisis.

Just curious; why has the article been locked? Does the current notoriety of Zimbabwe attract vandals? 76.2.152.124 (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The main reason that hyperinflation occurs is usually that the government that has no or very little prints money to pay bills. In verey economy there is some inflation and therefore the central banks constantly increase money supply to match demand. However if money is printed to enable the government to pay for things that is really has no money for, then the value of said money falls. Passportguy (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Effectively, printing money is a tax on existing wealth. It is clever, in a way, because hiding the money in the mattress is no good; the value is taken anyway. It is like putting more chips in a home poker game without paying for them; when it is time to cash in, every one has to settle for so many cents on the dollar. Poker players regard this as 'cheating'; when the government does it, it is called 'monetary policy'.

Inflation is the proper term for printing money/credit expansion. Higher prices are not inflation, but merely the result of inflation. 2600:1010:B069:D2A9:6D4B:7D8E:D2B:F951 (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Was there a moment, when fourth dollar was in real circulation?

Despite the fact fourth dollar was introduced in 2009, 2015 demonetization concerns third dollar. Was there a moment, when fourth dollar was in real circulation? Or it was only numismatic curiosity?

149.156.101.19 (talk) 13:57, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Reads like the Zimbabwean bond notes amount to a fourth dollar, even though they're not supposed to be. I think this and the other Zimbabwe articles need to be expanded again. 74.104.188.4 (talk) 03:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

British or American English?

Hi! I just made an edit to this article, in which I changed a few dates from British dates (Day Month Year, e.g. 5 June 3573) to American dates (Month Day, Year, e.g. June 5, 3573). Which way should dates in this article be written? Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 07:15, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

British --Bejnar (talk) 14:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Redenomination and devaluation are muddled, math is way off

I have edited the "devaluation" sections to clarify which dollars and which redenomination each one discusses.

In the process, I removed a statement from the "Final devaluation" section:

"Therefore, the fourth dollar would be worth 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 2×10^35 first dollars if never revalued."

This is clearly incorrect if it's referring to the redenominations, as that factor is 10^25. However, this statement might have been trying to make a point about additional devaluation relative to other currencies, though I don't see where an additional 2 x 10^10 comes from. Gwideman (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2019 (UTC)