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| Thread ID: 58096 | 2005-05-21 13:26:00 | Zimbabwe: Hyperinflation Breaks Spreadsheet | vinref (6194) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 357272 | 2005-05-21 13:26:00 | An article (www.nytimes.com) from the NYTimes (subscription only, but it is a first-class site) quotes a business owner saying that inflation is so bad, his previous spreadsheet couldn't handle all the zeros now required for everyday transactions. The transactions now run into the billions, even trillions, of Zimbabwean dollars. That may sound hilarious, but yet again another African country is failing at the cost of a large amount of suffering and number of human lives. |
vinref (6194) | ||
| 357273 | 2005-05-21 15:29:00 | Yes, just as was predicted years ago by all who lived there in colonial days. Garfield Todd, remember him, not even a Rhodesian, and others, facilitated the destruction of a very prosperous and well organized country run by settlers. Now everyone has lost and the local Zimbabweans are in real trouble all in the name of "one man one vote" tantalizingly and insidiously attractive but, ultimately and obviously to all who were there, the end of any immediate hope for the future as all who had made their homes there fled in fear of their lives, with good reason as subsequent events have shown. The same sort of thing has happened in Zambia, my former home country. Do I sound bitter? Well you're not imagining it, I am. A great future for all, indigenous people and others was reasonable assured given time, ie a few generations, now squandered by political expediency and naive belief that people from essentially a stone age culture with Primary School education could take over and run a modern country. /rant over. I'm glad I came to NZ but still miss all the places I grew up in. |
zqwerty (97) | ||
| 357274 | 2005-05-24 01:49:00 | his previous spreadsheet couldn't handle all the zeros now required for everyday transactions. The transactions now run into the billions, even trillions, of Zimbabwean dollars. That may sound hilarious, but yet again another ... country is failing at the cost of a large amount of suffering and number of human lives. Is there really a spreadsheet problem? In Hungary in 1946 they had a bit of inflation. One department store there had a system of ringing a bell that indicated all prices in the store were doubled. For a while they were ringing the bell about 4 times day. That is, they raised prices by a factor of 16 times per day. Over a year prices would have gone up at this rate by a factor of about 9.9E+40. (in reality the national inflation then was only about 10^16, but ...) My spreadsheet handles these easily, why did anyone need redundant zeros anyway? In the Weimar Republic (Germany) about 1923 one sometimes needed a barrowload of notes to buy a half kilo of butter. Maybe a cost in barrows and paper, but not that much in "suffering in human lives. In Brazil around 1970 they even got around the paper cost problem by recycling their 1000 cruzeiro notes (not very old ones either) by rubber stamping them as "one new cruzeiro". Maybe a cost of ink or rubber stamps problem, but it's hard to see where the "cost of a large amount of suffering and number of human lives" comes into any of this. Misallocation of resources (eg. into surplus banknote production, surplus bell production or surplus wheelbarrow production) may indeed cause some unnecessary human suffering, but one can easily point to other resource misallocations (even some in NZ at the present time) that are causing a lot worse than the above. |
rugila (214) | ||
| 357275 | 2005-05-24 02:09:00 | Welcome back rugila! :thumbs: |
andrew93 (249) | ||
| 357276 | 2005-05-24 06:57:00 | it's hard to see where the "cost of a large amount of suffering and number of human lives" comes into any of this.I gather you did not read the article? Or know much about the political situation in Zimbabwe? I would say there probably is a cost of human suffering and loss of life associated to the value of the zimbabwe dollar (as well as the other problems caused by the country's government). The country cannot afford (due to inflation, and therefore the massive devaluation of their currency against foreign currencies) to import the food required to keep the country out of famine, which then causes other issues. Mike. |
Mike (15) | ||
| 357277 | 2005-05-24 07:45:00 | I gather you did not read the article? Or know much about the political situation in Zimbabwe? I would say there probably is a cost of human suffering and loss of life associated to the value of the zimbabwe dollar (as well as the other problems caused by the country's government). The country cannot afford (due to inflation, and therefore the massive devaluation of their currency against foreign currencies) to import the food required to keep the country out of famine, which then causes other issues. 1. Depends which article you refer to. I've read a lot in my time. 2. Yes, I do know something about the political situation in Zimbabwe. One of my best golf buddies (we also had a lot to do otherwise) was a Zimbabwean - very well educated and knowledgeable one at that. What do you know about about the political situation there? 3. You would say wrong about what you refer to as "the value of the zimbabwe dollar", but generally right about "other problems caused by the country's government". 4."... due to inflation, and therefore the massive devaluation of their currency against foreign currencies". This is a non sequitur, doesn't help when put in with this form and you might usefully do further reading on the effects inflation per se has on the welfare of a country's populace vis a vis other influences. 5. Food problems are a different issue again and usually have a variety of causes. 6. Inflation, like poverty, deprivation, injustice etc. are symptoms of underlying causes, which it would be useful for you or anyone else to have good look at, and to avoid confusing symptoms with causes. |
rugila (214) | ||
| 357278 | 2005-05-24 07:56:00 | 1. Depends which article you refer to. I've read a lot in my time.Try the article that this thread is about. Linked to in the first post. Mike. |
Mike (15) | ||
| 357279 | 2005-05-25 11:03:00 | Try the article that this thread is about. Linked to in the first post. Mike. Yes. I read that one too. No real point in my making a post if I hadn't. Nothing in it vitiates any of my earlier comments - confirms them if anything. I've read quite a number of articles on this general topic - what else could I have reasonably said? |
rugila (214) | ||
| 357280 | 2005-05-25 12:39:00 | We should send Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble over there to fix it up. /joke |
zqwerty (97) | ||
| 357281 | 2005-05-25 13:03:00 | A useful site to keep current with Zim events is http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/ | Greg (193) | ||
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