
Zimbabwe unveils 100 trillion dollar banknote - azharcs
http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090116/902/twl-zimbabwe-unveils-100-trillion-dollar_1.html
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jws
Remember that Zimbabwe redemoninated in mid 2008 and took 10 zeroes off the
bills, and it hardly seems worth mentioning but they took 3 zeroes off in
2006. That makes this new bill 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 which may
or may not be 1 nonillion dollars. It's a lot of zeroes, I may have missed a
few one way or another.

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froo
At this rate, I think the idea of a Googolplex note being in circulation isn't
too far out of the realm of possibility.

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jerf
Googol _plex_ , no, but based on jws' post, they are well on their way to a
googol.

Googol = 10 ^ 100, Googolplex = 10 ^ googol.

They're over a quarter of the way there!

(And I am finding very hard not to type Google.)

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mhartl
_They're over a quarter of the way there!_

Only on a log scale. Which is what they're going to have to switch to pretty
soon.

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jerf
Technically, inflation is indeed an exponential process.

But there's no real need for me to take refuge in the word "technically" when
we're talking about 231 million percent inflation. There's nothing technically
exponential about that. (Sadly.)

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tapinko
At what point do you just admit defeat?

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Mystalic
For only $300 U.S., I could be a quintillionaire!

Hell yes!

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3pt14159
That $300 US is really only $1 US circa 1930 - 1 to 1E15 returns, astounding!

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gravitycop
_That $300 US is really only $1 US circa 1930_

What data set are you using? I got $12.39 (for $1 inflating from 1930-2009;
$24.20 for $300 deflating backward in time) using the standard data set at
Tom's Inflation Calculator: <http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html>

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3pt14159
Growth in the M1 index. <http://www.shadowstats.com/>

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gravitycop
Thanks. I suppose you have read this:
[http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/09/shadowstats_deb....](http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/09/shadowstats_deb.html)

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henning
Gee, it's a good thing I don't know crap about monetary policy, or else I
might think measures like this are just putting a bandaid on a bad situation
rather than addressing the fact that Zimbabwe is under the control of an
incompetent authoritarian dictator.

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gravitycop
There was a good post recently on Mugabe in the other half of this thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=433767>

_Mugabe wasn't horrible, and that's what's sad about all of this -- the land
reform was a populist grab that was initiated when he started losing his grasp
on the country. He's shown over and again that he's willing to put his
position above the interests of the country in the last few years, and that's
what'll make him go down in history as a despot rather than a hero._

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snorkel
Honest dumb question: If I had a Z$100 trillion note today and held it for 10
years after which time Zimbabwe made a modest comeback (hopefully) what would
determine the value of that note then? Perhaps it'd be worth $10000? Or does
the new government of the recovering nation just scrap all of the old currency
and tell any note holders to cash in the old notes by such a date or they'll
be worth nothing? What happens to hyper-inflated currencies in recovery mode?

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gravitycop
_what would determine the value of that note then?_

The amount of specie in circulation, divided by the assets that back that
specie.

 _Perhaps it'd be worth $10000?_

That would represent massive deflation. Normally, governments print enough
specie to at least keep up with the asset growth that backs it. If not, they
might require massive taxation (recovery of existing specie) to cover their
costs.

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rglovejoy
The article notes the security features being used in the new banknotes. Why
would they bother? In a month, they'll be worth less than the paper they are
made of.

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markessien
Germany solved their hyperinflation problem in the 20s by backing up the
currency with land. I wonder if Zimbabwe will have to do the same. That would
be ironic.

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ca98am79
man, now my site is really worthless:
<http://www.millionzimbabwedollarhomepage.com>

instead of all this nonsense, they should just release a $1 Zillion dollar
note and then they won't have to change it all the time.

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furyg3
I'd kind of like to grab one of these on ebay, actually.

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vaksel
so how long until we see an infinity bank note?

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thomasmallen
You mean a burner?

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eru
What does that mean?

