An ongoing update of how not to run a country if you're a dictator . . . . actually, this will probably show up in economic textbooks at some point . . . . along with Iran and Venezuala eventually.
Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate of inflation, estimated officially at around 4,500 percent but calculated by independent finance houses at closer to 9,000 percent.
A hardware store in northern Harare closed its doors Monday through Tuesday to re-price all its goods. Supermarkets and other shops are planning to shorten opening hours to make price changes, enabling them to buy replacement stock at higher prices.
A journalist for Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper reported that she had returned home from a week in South Africa to discover that during her absence the price of beef had increased 2.5 times, a bottle of cooking oil had doubled and bus fares had gone up between three and fivefold.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/af....ap/index.html
Cowperson