Other Crap

"Zimbabwe on Monday delayed the release of inflation data and said it might not be available 'for a while'"

Analysts were already prepared for 15000% inflation, so you can imagine how bad it is if they're hiding it. 15000% annualized inflation means that goods which cost a dollar as January 1 dawns will cost $151 as December 31st closes.

This is nowhere near a record. In late 1923 Germany issued a banknote with a face value of 100,000,000,000,000 Mark. One of the firms printing these notes submitted an invoice for the work to the Reichsbank for 32,776,899,763,734,490,417.05 Mark. You have to love the German precision - especially the five pfennig at the end - even in the face of societal anarchy.

The most famous bill printed by Germany in that time was a 50 million Mark note which would have been worth $12 million $US just nine weeks before it was printed, but was worth only one dollar as it rolled off the presses. A few weeks later it had no value at all.