Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
And economists around the world cheer, for there is now one more case to be studied.
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Mugabe is certainly going to show up in textbooks somewhere. A more detailed look from one year ago:
The IMF recently urged the Zimbabwe government to implement its turnaround policy instead of just talking and issuing policy statements about it. The fund said the policy should include strong fiscal adjustment; cutting state expenditure; full liberalization of the exchange rate regime; adoption of a strong monetary anchor by reducing money supply; fundamental structural reform, including price deregulation and public enterprise reform; strengthening of property rights and halting invasions of commercial farmland; and improvements in governance.
Noting that the signs of economic collapse were unmistakable, the IMF said, "In the absence of such a comprehensive and immediate policy package, Zimbabwe's economic prospects would be bleak."
In a lengthy interview on state television, President Mugabe dismissed the IMF's orthodoxy as "bookish economics", a "monster" designed to achieve regime change in Zimbabwe. Dumisani Muleya, news editor of the weekly "Zimbabwean Independent," commented in his regular trenchant column that Mugabe instead "vowed to pursue doggedly his own voodoo prescriptions. He said he would continue to print money on a massive scale to alleviate socioeconomic hardships.
“It provided the clearest sign yet that he is rapidly losing his grip on reality. The interview exposed Mugabe's threadbare grasp of modern economics and his struggle to get to grips with global dynamics. It helped to confirm his wholesale abdication of reason and a complete breakdown of common sense in government.”
Vincent Kahiya, editor of "The Independent," has christened Mugabe's love of printing money "Mugabeconomics."
I like the part in this story where it costs more to buy a hot dog in Harare today than it did to buy a house 25 years ago.
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-14-04.asp
Cowperson