by wildcherry on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | News, World | 117 Comments

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

by wildcherry on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 | News, World | 4 Comments

The US bank bail out alone totalled $850bn. That would clear the accumulated debts of the 49 poorest countries in the world twice over. It is about 53 times as much as the annual cost of getting every child into school. And more than it would cost to give basic healthcare to every man, woman and child on the planet for an entire decade

Here is what we urgently need to stop the Poverty Crisis:

A Crisis of Conscience

The numbers are mind boggling; the sense of panic is contagious. The global financial crisis has galvanised world leaders into finding unimaginable sums of money almost overnight to prevent banks collapsing, shore up failing systems and reassure nervous punters.

The arguments for urgent action to avoid systemic collapse are of course genuine and persuasive. But they reveal something extremely dark about the world’s priorities: we can find the money to bail out banks, but not to prevent the deaths of 30,000 children a day from poverty.

Mostly these children die quietly, far removed from the scrutiny and conscience of the world. It may be easy for us to ignore, but every day is a Financial Crisis for over half the world’s population who struggle for survival on less than $2 a day. The crisis on Wall St. and Main St. is no excuse to ignore the crisis in Kroo Bay - the infamous Sierra Leone slum whose residents face dehumanizing extreme poverty like millions more in the world.

$16bn a year to achieve education for all
$50bn a year to achieve health for all
$50bn a year to help developing countries adapt to the impact of climate change
$200bn a year to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals
$30bn a year to end hunger
$50bn to cut in half the number of children dying from poverty

So here’s a more heartening number: last year on world poverty day, over 47 million people took part in a record-breaking mobilisation against poverty. This year, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty are aiming for 1% of the world’s population – 67 million people – to stand up and take action. You can take part on Change.org. Beating a world record is an inspiring experience, but more important than the ‘standing up’ is the ‘taking action’.

Activist and journalist Jenerali Ulimwengu has dedicated his life to fighting for better governance in Tanzania. During Stand Up and Take Action this year, Ulimwengu will spearhead demands for the government to make sure that poor people have access to clean portable water, improve access to healthcare.

In Madhya Pradesh, India, Yogesh Jain last year mobilized more than 200,000 people to protest at the districts’ lack of healthcare, clean drinking water and resources for education. As a result of the massive mobilization, government officials conducted surprise inspections that resulted in the allocation of funding for repairs and the allotment of government land for school construction. Mr Jain will be standing up and taking action again this year.

In the end, people created poverty and people will eradicate it. The movement against poverty is growing – embracing both rich country activists who are ashamed to live in a world where governments consistently break their promises to tackle poverty, and people living in poor countries, who are demanding better governments with the determination to improve the lives of their most disadvantaged citizens. With every government focused obsessively on the financial crisis, there has never been a more urgent time for ordinary people to stand up and demand that poverty stays at the top of the world’s agenda.

A reminder of the most shocking number of all: 30,000 children die every day from poverty — a child every 5 seconds. If that isn’t a crisis, it’s hard to imagine what is.

Tags: change.org, eliminate poverty, global extreme poverty, poverty