# a country where everyone is a billionare



## daniel0731ex (Dec 21, 2009)

the bill for one night at a hotel
















this is zimbabwe, a country which have been suffering from hyperinflation, their money is worthless.



the costs of egg are about this much:







i wonder what you could buy with this?








nobody'd rob you even if you're carrying a whore bag of money.

















ever seen a bill with so many zeros before??




their money are so worthless that public toilets have to post signs like this:






would you like to be a billionare? Zimbabwe is the choice for you!


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## CitricAcid (Dec 21, 2009)

Lolz.
Did you visit Zimbabwe?

I especially ROFLED at the toilet sign. 
And I also felt a little sad at the kid carrying bajillions of dollars.  lol

So, did they cube there? And if they did, how much did a cube cost? lol.


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## i luv pants (Dec 21, 2009)

Wow that sucks.


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## janelle (Dec 21, 2009)

daniel0731ex said:


> nobody'd rob you even if you're carrying a *whore* bag of money.



whole* haha


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## Ranzha (Dec 21, 2009)

Dayum.


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## qqwref (Dec 21, 2009)

Hyperinflation is a pretty crazy thing (neat, yet horrible at the same time). I have some old paper money from 1920s Germany which goes from "one mark" all the way up to "a hundred million marks"... just a year or so apart. I don't imagine it would be extra hard to get some Zimbabwean currency, but I'd like to have some anyway 

As far as practically worthless currency from a country that isn't in some kind of insane financial crisis, how about the one-kopeck Russian coins that have been circulating since 1997? A Russian ruble is currently worth about 3.27 US cents, and a kopeck is 1/100 of that! Many stores won't accept them, and they are often kept in the same drawer as rubber bands and paperclips. Apparently last year the official bank proposed to withdraw them from the currency, but it hasn't been done yet.


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## TheMachanga (Dec 21, 2009)

NOT ANYMORE. They changed there currency recently.


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## LNZ (Dec 21, 2009)

At the same time as I've being buying cubes and old cube solving books and other puzzle products from Ebay, I have also ordered lots of Zimbabwe bank notes as well. 

I have a complete set of billions (1, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, 100) and trillions (10, 20, 50, 100) bank notes.

And there were no 1 and 5 trillion bank notes. They used old coins for this and re-valued them.

And I also have a 1 cent Zimbabwe bank note as well.


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## edd5190 (Dec 21, 2009)

This is sad, but at least now they'll learn more numbers


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## Dene (Dec 21, 2009)

To the OP: did you only just find out about the problems Zimbabwe is having, or did you only just feel like speaking up about it? If the first, then you may want to keep up with your current affairs more regularly. If the latter, then this thread is extremely random.


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## ben1996123 (Dec 21, 2009)

Lol cool, except $1,000,000 in Zimbabwean dollars is something like 2.6 cents...


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## LNZ (Dec 21, 2009)

Zimbabwe did strip off all the zeros on their currency in February 2009. But this did not solve any problems. So on July 1, they abandoned the idea of a currency completely and made every Zimbabwe resident pay in real hard currency (USD, UKP, AUD, EURO, etc) or pay in real gold.

Now Zimbabwe people have to search the countryside and find real gold, just like people in Australia and Califorinia did in the 1850's.


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## stonesmith322 (Dec 21, 2009)

what a pity!


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## Muesli (Dec 21, 2009)

The zimbabwe government have previously knocked off 21 0s off their dollar(compared to the pound).

This basically means that £1 was worth Z$100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. I was there about 2 years ago and it was only Z$10,000 to the £. Then they did the right thing and defaulted to the US$.


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## nitrocan (Dec 21, 2009)

Turkey used to have 6 zeros after everything too.
1 US$ was about 1.500.000 Liras. They got rid of the last 6 digits about 5 years ago.

So 1 billion Turkish Liras would have been 1000 US$.


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## PHPJaguar (Dec 21, 2009)

daniel0731ex said:


> Spoiler
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> ...



This is why I believe no country should be able to print and spend its own currency. I say stick with a metal coin system, because silver, gold, copper, etc. never lose their value. Even if the economy crashes, you will still be able to spend your money, because they aren't just pieces of paper.


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## Kian (Dec 21, 2009)

PHPJaguar said:


> daniel0731ex said:
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> 
> > Spoiler
> ...



That's not even remotely close to true. They've never been worth nothing, but the price of gold is, frankly, far more inconsistent than most major currencies.

That's not to say I'm 100% against a gold standard for paper currency, like the United States had until the 1970s, but in a much more fluid global economic atmosphere, it's becoming increasingly unfeasible.

Basically, there's not great way to do it. Ideally you would have a Federal Reserve type system that didn't make mistakes, but they do. Eventually it will be computer based, I'm sure.


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## Daniel Wu (Dec 21, 2009)

Kian said:


> PHPJaguar said:
> 
> 
> > daniel0731ex said:
> ...


 
If there is going to be paper money, then it needs to have _something_ to back it up to prevent governments printing off tons of money and creating problems with inflation.


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## aronpm (Dec 21, 2009)

rickcube said:


> If there is going to be paper money, then it needs to have _something_ to back it up to prevent governments printing off tons of money and creating problems with inflation.



There's this thing called 'common sense,' but it doesn't seem to exist in government.


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## Kian (Dec 22, 2009)

rickcube said:


> Kian said:
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> > PHPJaguar said:
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Like I said, there's no perfect way to do it. There are inherent problems with any of the options I considered.


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## KConny (Dec 22, 2009)

PHPJaguar said:


> This is why I believe no country should be able to print and spend its own currency. I say stick with a metal coin system, because silver, gold, copper, etc. never lose their value. Even if the economy crashes, you will still be able to spend your money, because they aren't just pieces of paper.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve



CitricAcid said:


> Lolz.
> Did you visit Zimbabwe?
> 
> I especially ROFLED at the toilet sign.
> ...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe

94% unemployment. I bet the rest is working at the cube factory.



daniel0731ex said:


> nobody'd rob you even if you're carrying a whore bag of money.



http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whore bag Hrm?


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## *LukeMayn* (Dec 22, 2009)

> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whore bag Hrm?



HAHAHA such funny definitions.
It must be such a hard life for the people in Zim though :/


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## PHPJaguar (Dec 22, 2009)

After some Googling...




Kian said:


> PHPJaguar said:
> 
> 
> > This is why I believe no country should be able to print and spend its own currency. I say stick with a metal coin system, because silver, gold, copper, etc. *never lose their value*. Even if the economy crashes, you will still be able to spend your money, because they aren't just pieces of paper.
> ...


On the contrary...


Wikipedia said:


> Investors generally buy gold as a hedge or safe haven against any economic, political, social or currency-based crises.


Gold is by far more stable than paper currency, although it looks like the price went crazy sometime in the 1980s.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Gold_Inflation_Adjusted.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/US_Historical_Inflation.svg

Also, here's an idea... what if we don't just have a gold standard, but a gold and silver standard? If we set certain values of the gold and silver relative to each other (e.g., one coin of gold is equal to another of silver), then we can help stabilize inflation/deflation. If someone suddenly uncovers a jackpot of gold, and if we have the silver on the other hand, it will prevent a huge gold inflation, because in order for the price of gold to go down, the silver will too.

Off to read more on it...

Edit:


KConny said:


> PHPJaguar said:
> 
> 
> > This is why I believe no country should be able to print and spend its own currency. I say stick with a metal coin system, because silver, gold, copper, etc. never lose their value. Even if the economy crashes, you will still be able to spend your money, because they aren't just pieces of paper.
> ...


Was the link to prove a point, or just for my information?


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## edd5190 (Dec 22, 2009)

ben1996123 said:


> Lol cool, except $1,000,000 in Zimbabwean dollars is something like 2.6 cents...



Did you only read the title? What you said was the entire point of the first post...


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## ThePizzaGuy92 (Dec 22, 2009)

they make it rain.


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## KConny (Dec 22, 2009)

PHPJaguar said:


> KConny said:
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> > PHPJaguar said:
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To prove a point. They aren't just pieces of paper.


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## richardzhang (Dec 23, 2009)

hmmmmmmmmm i wonder how much a mansion could cost.


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