1 CHINESE Yuan = 9192674972 Zimbabwe dollars.
Can you imagine how worthless the Zimbabwe dollar is?
In 2006, Zimbabwe's currency depreciated wildly, and the purchasing power of the currency fell below the ceiling, comparable to a cliff-like fall, so that the people of Zimbabwe had to take bundles of money with them when they went out.
It costs 3 trillion yuan to take a bus, an egg to a trillion yuan, and carrying a heavy bill can only be exchanged for a few pounds of rice.
Today a bread sells for 10,000 yuan, tomorrow it becomes 100,000 yuan, the day after tomorrow it becomes 100 million, and the speed of daily price rise is comparable to that of a rocket.
In the early 1980s, Zimbabwe's currency was 1 to 1.5 for the US dollar and 1 to 1 for the British pound sterling, and today it is worth only 25 US dollars for 100 trillion zimbabwes.
It was reported that in January 2008, Zimbabwe decided to let banks subtract 10 zeros from the end of the currency.
Because these zeros don't do any good. After 6 months, they removed 6 zeros, but then added 12 new zeros. But these billions of dollar bills can only be used to buy a few eggs.
In economics, it is generally defined that the monthly inflation of more than 50% is called hyperinflation, and this inflation rate in Zimbabwe is really indignant.
At such a high inflation rate, no one will save money, because there is no benefit in saving money, and it may be greatly devalued the next day.
Everyone's mind is thinking about how to spend money into waste paper money.
As a result, a large number of residents have taken their family savings to hoard supplies, because no one knows what will happen tomorrow.
This also directly leads to a shortage of materials on the market, and money cannot buy them.
Under such hyperinflation, the most bizarre countermeasure of the Zimbabwean government is to continue to print money and increase the denomination of banknotes.
Why is Zimbabwe, once a wealthy country in Africa, now suffering from severe inflation?
This starts with the land on which human beings depend. Due to its geographical environment, Zimbabwe's fertile land and abundant rainfall make it ideal for the cultivation of crops.
Zimbabwe was once Africa's breadbasket and was known as the "bread basket of Africa".
In the 1980s, during a year of severe drought, Zimbabwe exported 450,000 tons of maize to 15 African countries, feeding its own hungry people.
Agriculture has long been a pillar industry in Zimbabwe, and tobacco has occupied an important position in Zimbabwean agriculture, and other industries have developed driven by the tobacco industry.
For a country, it is very irrational to rely only on a single industrial structure to support national development, and the ability to resist risks is too weak, once it encounters a major natural disaster that has not been encountered in a hundred years, it is a disaster for a country.
But that's not the case, and what really caused Zimbabwe to suffer a major economic crisis was a land reform.
In 1980, when Zimbabwe became independent, 4,000 white farmers occupied 75 percent of the country's land, while the 7 million blacks owned only 25 percent, which caused strong resentment among local blacks, who demanded that whites return the land and distribute it to their own blacks without compensation.
To alleviate land tensions, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom signed an agreement on the return of land by whites.
The agreement stipulates that white farmers can continue to own land for 20 years, and the Zimbabwean government cannot easily change it, during which time western countries such as the United Kingdom provide various assistance to Zimbabwe to help it develop its economy.
At the same time, the transfer of land ownership was gradually carried out, funded by the British government, which used the redemption policy to purchase land from white farmers and distribute it to local blacks.
It was a good thing, but I didn't think it was a problem.
Much of the money British-funded purchases of land for white farmers did not go into the hands of the farmers, but went into the pockets of Zimbabwean government officials.
The corruption of the Zimbabwean government gives the British government, which does not want to continue to fund, a perfect reason.
In 1999, the United Kingdom and other countries stopped funding on the grounds of corruption of Zimbabwean officials, and the Zimbabwean government was reluctant to pay for it.
The local blacks, who had been waiting for nearly 20 years without land, were furious, and in early 2000 they began to attack white farms and seize land, and the contradictions between the two sides intensified from time to time.
At such a critical juncture, the Zimbabwean government has ignored the ideological contradictions, and in the war of land grab between blacks and whites, it has not asked questions, ignored the sidelines, and failed to take timely and effective measures to properly resolve them.
In pursuit of high profits, some people gave up the cultivation of food crops and switched to tobacco, resulting in tobacco export restrictions and no food.
In the face of international sanctions and domestic chaos, the Zimbabwean government did not come up with an effective measure, but instead issued a large number of currencies, in a vain attempt to reduce fiscal expenditure and stabilize the market by issuing more currency.
Fortunately, since 2009, the Zimbabwean government began to adopt foreign currencies such as the US dollar as a transition, and with the assistance of international countries, including the mainland, the economy has begun to recover, and the people's lives have gradually stabilized.
In 2019, the Zimbabwean government finally reissued its national currency, which also means that Zimbabwe's economy is back on track.
The economy is the lifeblood of a country, once the economy has problems, the country will be turbulent, and the people should not want to live a happy life.
Settle down, in order to be happy.
Only when the people have faith and the country has strength can the nation have hope.