Zimbabwe hyperinflation rate hits 516 quintillion percent, to set world record within 6 weeks

This article belongs to the Zimbabwe inflation watch story arc.

peakoil.com -> telegraph.co.uk :

With official statistics of Zimbabwe's inflation rate at 231 million percent widely distrusted, the Cato Institute has calculated the figures based on exchange rate movements and market data, putting Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate at 516 quintillion per cent - 516 followed by 18 zeros - overtaking Yugoslavia in 1994 and putting it behind only Hungary in 1946. Prof Steve Hanke said: "... if they keep going at this pace, they have a shot at it within a month or maybe a month-and-a-half at the outside."

In post Second World War Hungary monthly inflation reached 12,950,000,000,000,000 per cent, with prices doubling every 15.6 hours - Zimbabwean prices are currently doubling every 1.3 days. The most famous hyperinflation, Weimar Germany in 1923, is in a distant fourth place, at 29,525 per cent a month with prices doubling every 3.7 days. Zimbabweans must spend money as soon as they get it before it loses its value. But goods are in desperately short supply. Supermarkets are accepting only US dollars and South African rands, leaving those without access to foreign currency in dire straits.

- If nothing is changed, and the recent G20 meeting has kind of proven that, this could turn out to be a preview of what comes next after the ongoing global hyperdeflation. The so-called strong US dollar as it is currently, with the USDX floating way above 80 is a temporary illusion. The fundamentals stink. The Fed's balance sheet is full of crap toxic waste mortgages and that's supposed to be some sort of backing for the currency? The dollar is worthless, and by extension all other currencies linked to it by exchange rates. Zero multiplied by anything is still zero. This is simply what people from all ages have eventually found out regarding all fiat currencies.

So we have a thousand trillion dollars of credit derivatives overhang that are collapsing as we speak, together with the global stock markets. The bond markets are said to be next, and some say the currency markets as well. Then there's the printing press. A thousand trillion dollars can be in time overwhelmed by a thousand quintillion dollars. Dam bursting stuff. It could be the worst of all possible worlds, as we get plunging asset prices followed by an all-out hyperinflationary collapse. Brace yourselves.

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