NPR reporting Zimbabwe's rate of inflation is 100,000%....

[rasputin1952]

bread costing up to what amounts to $1 million+ per loaf.

Looks like big changes coming in the nation very soon.

[mainegreen]

1. Zimbabwe is the perfect example of exactly what not to do.

Just do the exact opposite of anything Mugabe does.

Anyways, what does 100,000% inflation mean when even if you had the money, there's nothing to buy? It could be 1 gazillion % inflation and the situation would be the same: no energy, no food, no sanitation, no freedom, no justice, no escape, no hope.

[Zynx]

4. Mugabe is catastrophically incompetent.

If there's one world leader worse for his country than Bush, it's Mugabe.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. What does 100K% inflation mean . . . when there's nothing to buy

It means there's nothing to buy. Money is merely a symbolic form of wealth; real wealth is goods and services.

If the price of apples is $1/ea and the government doubles the money supply while no more apples are produced, the prices of apples will be $2/ea. That's a simple example of inflation.

In Zimbabwe's case, there are fewer goods and services being chased by as much or more money. If fact, there are almost no goods and services.

When Mugabe, an unorthodox Marxist, came to power in the seventies, he had a lot more sense. He allowed the white farmers who successfully produced food for Zimbabwe to continue. Then, like Stalin and Mao, he messed with the nation's farm for purely ideological reasons and the result is mass starvation, as it was in Stalin's Soviet Union and during Mao's Great Leap Forward.

Moral of the story: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[BB1]

2. in 2000, a loaf of bread was less than 50 zim$$

and 100zim$ would buy you three beers. But even as early as those days, military choppers were circling capital Harare, gas was hard to get, same as diesel. Toerism was falling, ranches were being repossessed. I never went back, but I've kept a loose watch on the situation.

Morgan Tsangvirai has been the opposition for the past 8 years, and although he's been smeared, intimidated, beat up and down, he's never given up.
Once he gets into power, he might hold such a big grudge; he might not do any better than Mugabe. Still, Mugabe has to go, the sooner the better.

[PVnRT]

3. Doubtful

Mugabe will rig the election somehow. International groups have already said there's little chance for a proper election.