*Kinda awesome that down in the fine print, all government actions are illegalized.
"Cause, you know, the money is fictional. So they just sorta make it all up with bayonets in Zimbabwe now.
*This leaves one to wonder what the heck goes on if the South African Rand and the American Dollar also hyperinflate. The Zimbabweans *do* have currency – it's just incredibly expensive currency belonging to foreigners. But what happens when and if all available currencies lose their ability to map reality, and all drift right off into hyperquadrillion-land? I guess the biggest exchange-structure standing would be precious metals. That, and cellphone minutes...
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45518
ZIMBABWE: So How Does One Budget in a Collapsed Currency?
By Ephraim Nsingo (((I hope they paid him for writing this. Zimbabwe seems to exist on the global radar strictly because of sweat-equity from
NGO activists.)))
HARARE, Jan 23 (IPS) - In November 2007, Zimbabwe's then Minister of Finance, Samuel Mumbengegwi struggled through the reading of the 2008 budget, his tongue tripping over figures in the trillions and quadrillions of Zimbabwean. So embarrassed was Mumbengegwi that he even shied away from announcing the total budget figure of 7.84 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars, then a record amount. ((("Mumbengegwi" isn't the easiest thing to pronounce, either.)))
Now for the first time since independence, Zimbabwe has started a new year without a national budget.
"It is a mission impossible to make a budget under the current conditions," said University of Zimbabwe business lecturer and economic commentator Tony Hawkins. "The budget will be meaningless because there is a meaningless currency. In a situation where you do not have an effective government, like we do now, a budget will not make any difference."
(((Given this reality on the ground, one wonders if things would be improved by simply MAKING UP a budget. Just invent one out of whole cloth, like "economic-science fiction."
If you could get every government in the world to coordinate, couldn't we just... well...
declare ourselves to be prosperous? As long as we all agreed never to prick the global bubble, every man would be a king!)))
Despite the insistence by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono that the economy has not been dollarised, most Zimbabweans are now using either U.S. dollars or South African rand for their transactions. (((Pity the Zimbabwean guys who were using Icelandic krona.)))
"This is a sign of a collapsed economy," says Hawkins. "How much will the budget amount to in local currency? During the presentation of the last budget, the minister could not remember the numbers, imagine what will happen now." (((I can't imagine that, so I'm hoping it's an interesting case study when much larger economies also become unimaginable.)))
With a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note now in circulation, Zimbabweans now have quintillions and sextillions in their accounts. Gono has over the past few months been introducing new notes almost every fortnight. This year's budget, if presented in local currency, would range in the millions of quintillions or sextillions. (((One wonders why they bother. It's an angels on the head of a pin thing here, unless they're secretly hoping to enter the Guinness Book of Records.)))
Rodgers Matsikidze, a commercial lawyer based in Harare, told IPS that the government is now caught up between a rock and a hard place. (((Or between a sextillion rocks and a quadrillion hard places.)))
"The problem is that the budget would be exhausted the very day it would be tabled because of hyperinflation," said Matsikidze. "At the same time, there are no legal instruments to legalise the current government expenditures. Government is required by law to seek parliamentary approval for whatever expenditures, but this has not been the case." (((
Acting Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa said he was "going to move a motion on the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill in Parliament very soon". He would not give further details on the exact date of the presentation or the currency to be used.
But a top official in his Ministry, requesting anonymity, said it was "unlikely the budget would be presented any time soon" because of the "chaos associated with the current hyperinflationary environment".
"The only logical way would be for the government to budget in US dollars on South African Rand," said the official. (((I think it's logic that led them into this situation – a little horse sense would have led them to overthrow the regime. Sure, that would have been a bloodbath, but so is starvation and cholera.)))
"The problem is, if they budget in foreign currency, that would effectively mean the economy has been dollarised and have a lot of implications. The best way out of this would be to continue in the current quasi-fiscal approach, led by the RBZ, until the constitution of the inclusive government. It is sad the ordinary person will continue to suffer most." (...)
(((I'm wondering about giant fiscal collapses in which ordinary people DON'T suffer most. ARE there any of those? It's like dreaming of some kind of pneumonia that hits only billionaires.)))
(((Even in the French Revolution, with aristocrats literally dangling from lanterns in the streets, it was STILL the ordinary people suffering most, right? I mean, even though the aristocrats were effectively liquidated, there were a lot more suffering ordinaries than suffering aristocrats. Just do the math there, and write back when you hit the billions.)))
