Who wants to be a billionaire?

I repeat there is no crisis in Zim! This is not our doing, it is a British plot!

In commemoration for president Mugabe, they should’ve renamed the currency completely from $Zim to BOB.

… then they can pay every worker 5 bob and it will be like old times. considering 5bob is worth more than just about any $zim note denomination before this new one and they’d actually be able to use it for something

- Just my 5 bob worth.

IMHO, that crooked thieving bs$t@rd, Robbin’ Bob, will cheat and kill his way into power again. (Does anyone remember that the results of the 2002 Election are still being disputed?)

Of course, our peripatetic President, Travelling Thabo, will deny there is a crisis, After all, how can there be a crisis in “his” Africa? (Should I put a few exclamation marks in there?)

You know how the saying goes, Stentor…

Rob Mugabe … before he Robs you!

Many a true word spoken in jest, Chris. And I see that our friendly local megalomaniac has now given the international banks short notice that they are about to be nationalised.

How on earth does he get away with this $hit? Cannot the leaders who support him, even if only tacitly, see what his actions are doing to the economies of the region that they are supposed to be governing? Or would they all prefer to hold hands with him while the regional economy goes to he!! in a hurry? The only leaders with any backbone are those of Botswana and of Zambia – at least they make the right moves and are not too supportive of the maniac.

But their actions count for little while Robbing Bob and his cohorts are supported and encouraged, while his rape of Zimbabwe is tolerated, while he commits genocide of his own electorate, while all these vile actions are underpinned by the support and willful ignorance of the government of SA.

Crisis? What crisis?

Nero plays the fiddle while Rome burns – (Julius Cesar by William Shakespear)

Its going to end with RSA going the same way as ZIM, its just a matter of time.

guys let’s be realistic here, why is the currency in ZIM that high, while the country is still having mineral deposits and other useful means of living? let me tell you it’s the British and the Americans that have created all of this in that troubled country. Ask yourself if these countries (US & Britain) and the rest of the world (rich countries)are willing to inject billions of money once the Mugabe regime is out? so in simple terms they want the people of Zim to die of hunger until when?

mhlobo, history shows us that if you keep printing money as you see fit, you beget inflation.

Google “causes of inflation” and find out what causes it. Inflation started to run out of control in Zim when Mad Bob need a lot of money to stop the so-called war vet’s throwing him out of office.

From there, it’s all been downhill. And now Robbing Bob is going to “steal” 51% of the international banks. Oh, that will go down like a pork chop in a mosque!

Guys we can all laugh about this, but the Zimbabwe situation is like AIDS, which is no longer a disease, but a human rights issue. Where on hell(let alone earth) can you have one piece of paper worth 25 billion, this is a state of emergency. Well, I support Chris idea of changing Zim$ to BOB (5 BOB… classic).

Sivuyile, I couldn’t agree more.
Unfortunately, that Guardian of Humanity in Africa, our More-Away-Than-At-Home President, doesn’t agree with us.
He sees it, I think, as an upstart trying to wrest power from The Great Liberator.
I don’t know whether to laugh at the on-going idiocy and obfuscation, or cry at the results of those on the people of Zimbabwe, inside or outside that country.

Oh John..here you go with the same rant…
We are not Zimbabwe, we won’t have 20 billion notes..at least not in the foreseeble future.
Maybe you are just a pessimist who is trying to plant a seed of doubt on your home country.
What is happening in Zim is bad, terrible and last night I watched in disgust as Bob Mugabe dined at an expensive Italian resturant.
What about the millions who are starving in Zim? A leader, a true leader, puts his people before his personal needs. A true leaders never makes decisions based on emotions, but rather rationale.
Anyone who calls himself a leader should respect tthe position of leadership and more than anything, the people who put him to power.

“Realistic” you are winding me up, but just in case you are not, here we go.

Mhlobo

You are kidding right; I was hoping Government/Media/Schools provided some education to the issues of the global economy we find ourselves in?

Remember the old word productivity? A countries value and currency is directly linked to its productivity, wealth is created by hard work and capital employed not a printing press. Of course speculators influence the currency over the short term; however they are priced out of the market over time.

In Zimbabwe we have a very clear case of no produce, hence no sales leads to what; yep you guessed it an overdraft and a need to print more money.

When you don’t produce anything i.e. earn money, guess what you have to print it. When you have one Z$ and print two Z$’s guess what the Z$ halves in value, if the productivity of the country does not increase to two at the same time of printing, when measured against the currencies read “productivity” of the rest of the world.

Now correct me if I am wrong wasn’t Zim’s biggest local and foreign currency earnings producer agriculture? What has happened to the agricultural productivity and capital employed in their economy and on their farms, there must have been a drought?

This must also be the same reason the other employers of capital in the economy including SA companies wrote off their investments in Zim to zero and stopped employing any future capital in Zim.

Governments role in all this is to facilitate the employment of capital not discourage its investment. In some ways our own watered down versions of Zimbabwe policy failures are discouraging investment in similar ways, hence discouraging productivity and wealth creation.

Oh yes and the reason they “may” invest after the thief has been removed, is possibly because they believe the risk of their investment being stolen will be removed once that biggest of cookie jar raiders, “mad rob mugabe” has been removed.

Or then again I guess it must have been a UK/US plot after all they are not interested in growing world markets to accept their production.

With current skill shortages and the incompetence in the public and the private sector, us becoming similar to Zim is not so far fetched.

“What we did not think about when we chased all the whiteys away, is how it would effect employment and inflation.” Does this sound like a comment from a Zimbabwean?

No, my friend actually said this last night…

This all boils down to the African leadership style. In African terms, the leader always comes first – before his people. Take a look at any country in sub-Saharan Africa, and you’ll see that pattern.

African leadership traditionally involves one leader and his subjects – two levels of leadership. In a Western hierarchy, this falls apart – the leaders at the top lose contact with the people on the ground, and stuff like Mugabe’s Italian dinners happen. They don’t see the people they’re supposed to be leading – they only see their immediate subordinates.

Western government does not work in an African context. It just doesn’t. It’s like handing a uranium processor to a group of rice farmers. They’ll figure out how to toast their rice, the machine will break down, they might complain, but they’ll never fix it – and it will never work to it’s full potential.

Same thing here, just on a monumentally larger scale. The structure of Government itself is failing the people. We need a ground-up rethink.

// Silverwing

It is sad when uneducated people spout their views on blogs, especially affirming villainous tyrants and their views.

No, Mhlobo, you bumpkin, the “great evil western powers” did not do this. It’s your old chum Mad Bob that did it, along with silent support from his populace.

It is sad indeed when people actually swallow the garbage espoused by madmen.

Perhaps even more crazy is trying to oust a dictator democratically. Clearly, this is illogical and a paradox, since the man has the support of the military, who actively voiced support for Bob alone. Clearly, using the democratic and legal route is stupid in a country that is an autocracy, and that has an iron hand over the judiciary.

Whilst the UK and US would presumably want to get the natural resources from the country, remember, they don’t need Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe needs them. Why be fussed over what is essentially a national parasite? Also, if you want them to donate money to Zim, rather flush it down the toilet, it would go to better use – at least it wouldn’t be going to Mugabe’s coffers.

From a moral and ethical point, you don’t support systems that are inhumane and degrade the entirety of a person’s rights etc. into the dust.

Just a quick thing on the inflation…

A very simple means of explaining it to those who do not understand:

The money you have does not belong to you. It is merely a token of credit. You may exchange it for gold in the reserve bank. IOW the country may only print as much money as it is able to reflect in gold (or assets) … so if you don’t have any gold reserves, you can’t just print money for the hell of it.

That’s the old way of thinking about it – in today’s world, if we all had to withdraw every cent we have in the bank they would ALL go bankrupt and only a fraction of us would get our money. Since your well earned money is being used to play the stock market by the owners.

This is how Bob is running it. It’s all a gamble with the hopes that people will not cash out all at once.

So the long and the short of it:

Money has no value on its own… it only has value when it reflects what your country has. However, only once we’ve killed the last animal and cut down the last tree will we realise that money cannot be eaten.

Darren, have you noted the similar “hands” although not iron, attempting to gain similar holds over our own judiciary recently. Refer to Judge John Hlophe Hlope and the constitutional court issues.

We can only pray the constitution is strong enough to keep the hands off or else we will be taking another step down the similar ladder.

Being un politically correct here, one only has to look at the whole of subb sahara Africa to see the problem.
The african nation are not capable of running a country. Give them another 500 years then maybe.
Robert Mugabe started off ok, but then greed took over and then the swiss bank accounts opened and the money poured into them.

If the people are desperate enough then they would/could overpower the military by sheer numbers and have a coup.Perhaps that is on the table….who knows.
No country would dare to invest in zim, until bob is ousted, as none of the money would reach the people. The same applies to many other countries like sudan, ethiopa etc etc.

Main thing that gets me is that the more politically unstable countries around, the worse the overall economy does in a region, with the neighbors of said country feeling the impact the worst.

So, basically, everyone tolerating this gimp is contributing to a factor that undermines our economy and detracts from millions of South African’s lifestyles, not to mention other foreign nationals in other countries.

Mhlobo, I do apologize for calling you a bumpkin. I simply do not understand your stance, when there are no substantiated facts that lend credence to your position. It is incomprehensible to me.

As in any organization, there are the bad apples – it just hits home harder when unearthed in the judicial system. I hope that due process of law is followed, to the letter. However, a personal opinion on the matter suspects Hlope of guilt, mainly based on the precedence of unethical and indefensible previous behavior. Ironically, a lot of our law and rulings are indeed based on cases of precedence.

y ppl complain abt money? come to south africa we wil show quick way of making money,no such buldy thing abt ressession!