Zimbabwe is to introduce Z$100,000,000,000,000 note

[Sir Prince]

When I was waiting for my plane at London Gatwick the exhange was selling (not buying) Zombabwe currency at 30,000 for £1 on Halloween (OCt. 31st).

I think it is time for them to move back to the barter system and brush up on how the Germans coped with hyper inflation in the 1920s.

 

[Cymro]

sextillion

I think the sheer magnitude of these numbers is hard to grasp. To put it into understandable terms, if you had a millimetre for every percent of that inflation, you'd have 89.7 quintillion metres, which is equivalent to 2.2 trillion trips around the equator, a feat that light would take over 2 hours to complete

Just imagine a phone service that would give you the precise value of the Zimbabwe Dollar at any given time.
At the sound of the tone, the Zimbabwe dollar is worth 0.0000000721669 USD. Pip, pip, pip, beep!
Hang up, call again.
At the sound of the tone, the Zimbabwe dollar is worth 0.0000000360834 USD. Pip, pip, pip, beep!

That's plagiarism that is, as MrCrotch pointed out. I will not stand any more of this! I'm suing you for Z$1,000,000,000,000,000!

So you'd better hurry up an attend court before that amount becomes worthless!

 

[Mage246]

I'm not even sure it's possible to carry on an economy with numbers that large. Do they all run around with scientific calculators, or do they just knock off most of the zeroes when performing calculations? It's almost certainly the latter, I just couldn't get the image of someone trying to buy a loaf of bread and failing because the cash register couldn't ring up the price out of my head .

 

[dalai pasha]

or do they just knock off most of the zeroes when performing calculations?

yes, just like we did 5-6 years ago.

 

[Mage246]

Yeah, I already knew that, I was just setting up a joke.

 

[dalai pasha]

Yeah, I already knew that, I was just setting up a joke.

i got it, what i meant was until recently we had million dollar (?) lira bills and were a part of that joke...

 

[Mage246]

Sadly, millions of lira cannot even come close to comparing with what's going on in Zimbabwe right now. The numbers involved right now are quite frankly impossible for the human mind to comprehend, except in the abstract. To put it in perspective: the average Zimbabwean lives 37 years, which means they live for around 1,166,832,000 seconds. That's just a little over 1.1 billion seconds. So there are almost as many Zimbabwean dollars in a $100,000,000,000,000 note as there are seconds in the lives of 100,000 Zimbabweans. The number is so large, that if you were to count $1 per second, it would take you around 761 years to count them all. In other words, it's *impossible* for a human being to count them one at a time, even if they did so much faster than 1/second. And that's for a bill that's only worth $30 US.


(feel free to check my math, just to be sure I didn't screw something up)

 

[Elenmmare]

But why do we care? I can't believe people still use money - I guess we'll do anything if it means clinging to order. I'm sure most people have just resorted to using a bartering system.

 

[Cymro]

The number is so large, that if you were to count $1 per second, it would take you around 761 years to count them all.

"That's 99 trillion dollars, please."
"Hold on, sonny. I've got the right change in here somewhere. One... two... three.. four"
"That's 102 trillion dollars please"
"five, six"
(week later)
"That's 1.28 quadrillion dollars, please."
"Thirty six million, two hundred and eighty eight thousand. Thirty six million, two hundred and eighty eight thousand and one..."
" "

 

[Anarion]

I remember when I was a little kid, and before going to Italy, my dad gave me a 1000 lira bill.
Oh, the joy. Then the shattered dreams..

 

[thesneakster]

or do they just knock off most of the zeroes when performing calculations?

The government already knocked off about 12 zeros, i think. Before this note was issued.

 

[tommylaw]

when dont they just go back to bartering,

"i will trade you this healthy slave for those tic-tacs."

 

[War_B*stard]

I doubt that Zimbabwe has or will revert to a barter economy. From what I've read the value of goods has been pegged to the US dollar, so that is now the preferred currency (as it is in many countries who have 'shaky' currencies).

 

[Branko]

Never thought anybody could beat this:

Wonder how the Zimbabwean one is gonna look like?

 

[Sir Prince]

Hmm, I'd like to purchase a collection of Zimbabwe currency bills. They should sell them, for US dollars, over the internet. Plus shipping.

 

[Cymro]

Uncirculated sets pop up on ebay from time to time, or so I've heard.

Although selling banknotes off at billions of time their actual value is probably the only export of Zimbabwe at the moment

 

[Skeletor]

隐藏

he-he, I got one of these and I'm surprised at the amount of zeros every time I see it.

 

[jldmon]

way to go they finally got 30$