by wildcherry on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | News, World

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If you think that the current economic crisis is something that has never happened in history before, you may be wrong! After the collapse of the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe in 2000, the inflation in that country skyrocketed to 231 million percent a year! Just think about it - 231 000 000%! Unemployment went up to 80% and a third of country’s population left it.

Zimbabwe’s inflation rate has soared in the past three months and is now at 11.2 million percent, the highest in the world, according to the country’s Central Statistical Office.

“While our case has been aggravated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western powers, rising food prices are a world phenomenon because of the use of bio-fuel,” said Samuel Mumbengegwi. “But we will continue to fight inflation by making sure that prices charged are realistic.”

In February, the price of a loaf of bread in the country was less than 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars. On Monday, that same loaf of bread cost 1.6 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.”

Let`s now have a look at the photos that you may not be able to see anywhere else in the world.

Here is a boy getting change in 200 000 dollar notes!

One 200 000 dollar note equals less than $0.10 cents.

December 22nd, a new note of 500 000 dollars introduced to the market!

Next - 750 000 dollars.

The room service menu at the Holiday Inn in Bulawayo:

January - new note of 10 million dollars.

This US $10 dollar note is 10 times worth more than the 10 million dollars Zimbabwe note.

A case worth 65 billion Zimbabwe dollars which equals to $2000 US dollars.

This guy is going to a supermarket. The exchange rate is 25 million Zimbabwe dollars for 1 US dollar.

This mountain of cash is worth $100.

50 Million note is then introduced!

Next is 250 million dollars note!

Sorry, how much is this t-shirt? - It`s cheap, only about 3 billion dollars!

May - a note of 500 million dollars is introduced!

June - note worth 25 and 50 billion are printed.

And finally - 100 billion dollars note!

What can you buy for it? Well, these 3 eggs for example.

Thats how people went to restaurants!

And the bills:

In August, the government devalued Zimbabwe dollar by removing 10 zeros from notes.

However, inflation kept going up and in September for this amount of cash you could only buy 4 tomatoes.

And for this - some bread.

And then it started again: 20 000 dollars note in September.

50 000 a couple of weeks later!

They`ve got a pretty good chance of hitting billion dollar notes again when they issued the new 100 million notes in Dec 08′!

PRICELESS: The new Z$100-million note issued this Dec 08′ will, like its predecessors, soon lose any worth it has.

This table shows a condensed history of the foreign exchange rate of the Zimbabwean Dollars to one US Dollar:

In Sept 2008, the third Zimbabwean Dollars was issued:

Tags: billion dollars bill, global crisis, global extreme poverty, inflation, million dollars bill, zimbabwee currency, zimbabwee financial crisis