Zimbabwe down to the last $217

[TimothyC]

Adam Clark Estes Jan 29, 2013

There are cash-strapped governments and there are broke governments. And then there's Zimbabwe, which, after paying last week's government salaries, has just $217 left in the bank. No, we didn't forget any zeroes to the end of that figure. Zimbabwe, the country that's home to some of the world's largest platinum and diamond reserves, literally has the same financial standing as a 14-year-old girl after a really good birthday party. The country's finance minister admitted as much in a press conference on Tuesday. "Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 [left] in government coffers," Tendai Biti told reporters. "The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment. We are failing to meet our targets."

So it seems. However, Zimbabwe is hardly a stranger to financial hyperbole. The economy started to come apart at the seams in 2000, when President Robert Mugabe seized the land of over 4,000 white-owned farmers, effectively dismantling the country's agriculture industry. Over the course of the next decade, the country spiraled into an extended period of hyperinflation, the likes of which the world almost never sees. It peaked in August 2008, when inflation reached 11,200,000 percent and economists around the world started to say that the country's situation was hopeless. Prices were doubling by the day, and the government had to print Z$100 billion notes. The following year, they went ahead and printed Z$100 trillion notes, just before deciding to chop 12 zeroes off of the currency. A new coalition government formed that year and started on the long process of financial recovery, a process that is clearly going to take a little longer.

It's unclear how the Zimbabwean government is going to get itself out this fiscal mess, but whatever it does, it needs to do it quickly. As Quartz's Tim Fernholz points out, Zimbabwe is looking at a $104 million bill for its upcoming election. Its government is also dealing with brand new allegations that government officials have been running a corruption ring around the country's diamond mines. The country obviously desperately needs a major change. "But action against corruption probably won’t come until the end of Mugabe's reign, and a new constitution coming up for a referendum this spring -- presuming the funds can be found -- might set up the aging autocrat for another term in power," writes Fernholz.

Until then, looking for quarters under the couch isn't going to cut it, so Zimbabwe is doing the only thing it can do. "We will be approaching the international community," Biti said. You'll never guess who's most likely to come to the rescue. Hint: They're big fans of rare minerals.

Yet more failtastic news from Mugabeland.

[Aaron MkII]

That's like something out of a cartoon.

[K. A. Pital]

These guys called up a sorcerer, remember. That's a lot less outlandish.

[Grumman]

These guys called up a sorcerer, remember. That's a lot less outlandish.

And had a mermaid problem at one of their dams.

[Sephirius]

Is it still considered monstrously un-PC to want Rhodesia back?

[K. A. Pital]

Yes. Though recalling Rhodesia is sort of like trying to fight late-stage tuberculosis with cancer.

[Chirios]

Is it still considered monstrously un-PC to want Rhodesia back?

Don't be stupid.

[Sephirius]

Is it still considered monstrously un-PC to want Rhodesia back?

Don't be stupid.

Sorry, that was phrased poorly, I was trying to get at the ethics of one regime (Rhodesia) vs the other with the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe. The 'want' in the above phrase was hypothetical; i.e. If you could magic one regime for the other would you?

[K. A. Pital]

Sorry, that was phrased poorly, I was trying to get at the ethics of one regime (Rhodesia) vs the other with the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe. The 'want' in the above phrase was hypothetical; i.e. If you could magic one regime for the other would you?

It was not stupid - there's a whole phenomenon of disenfranchised whites from former Rhodesia talking how badass they and Smith were in the bars of South Africa. So clearly the question about Rhodesia-nostalgia is not a hypothetical discussion but rather a real, existing phenomenon.

[Sephirius]

Sorry, that was phrased poorly, I was trying to get at the ethics of one regime (Rhodesia) vs the other with the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe. The 'want' in the above phrase was hypothetical; i.e. If you could magic one regime for the other would you?

It was not stupid - there's a whole phenomenon of disenfranchised whites from former Rhodesia talking how badass they and Smith were in the bars of South Africa. So clearly the question about Rhodesia-nostalgia is not a hypothetical discussion but rather a real, existing phenomenon.

I always figured that was just the fringes who espoused such things, I just don't get how it is seemingly parroted more openly and without as much condemnation now; despite how racist/terrible Rhodesia was with their pseudo-apartheid policies.

[Thanas]

If the alternative to pseudo-apartheid is widespread starvation one can see how it might appear to be the superior alternative. Of course, the question is not an either-or in reality.

[Stark]

Its a pretty amusing form of racism when the only alternative to 'extremely unsuccessful government which happens to be black' is 'BRING BACK THOSE WHITE GUYS'.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Is it still considered monstrously un-PC to want Rhodesia back?

They didnt have Apartheid and such on the same scale. Disenfranchisement and lack of suffrage though, was still present.


Problem is, slaves in the USA probably had a better quality of life on average. So Rhodesia, which was miles better than that, would bs superior in every way for everybody. Sure, rights and equality wouldnt be present, but that shit is fairly fucking irrelevant when you are having mass starvation and a near dead economy. I think if everyone alive during the Bush War had known or were made to know this would happen, then you would have an entire generation of Black Rhodesians saying " Fuck it, we can wait until we can run this right".

Because Mugabe killed it.

For actual solutions? I have nothing short of proposing what would essentially be Neo-Colonialism. So...let starvation and horror take its course and hope the next guy is better.

[CaptHawkeye]

Its a pretty amusing form of racism when the only alternative to 'extremely unsuccessful government which happens to be black' is 'BRING BACK THOSE WHITE GUYS'.

Who says the White Man's Burden is a thing of the past?

[Dominarch's Hope]

Basically anybody who thinks we should severely alter Afghanistan's(or anybody elses) culture because we find it primitive and barbaric.

[CaptHawkeye]

Today's thinking is more that only rich white people can save brown people from their poverty and destitution. Just replace "saving" with "civilizing" and "poverty" with "savagery" and you can see why the third world is still getting royally fucked over by the west.

But then I just live in a part of the world that thinks Bono isn't just minting more record deals and feeding his gigantic ego with Live 8 concerts.

[Dominarch's Hope]

U2 literally sounds like pots and pans with a mild riff going through. It just sounds shitty to me.

[Zixinus]

OP news: at least they admit it and don't pretend that they're coughing shit down instead of up. They ran their incompetent, corrupt power games and this is what those result in. If the situation is really this bad, the only question is how long will social order run on its own while the government collapses.

[CaptHawkeye]

The government of the country is corrupt, so fuck everyone living there is your reasoning?

I didn't know we lived in a time where the poor, disadvantaged people of a nation were held accountable for their corrupt oppressive government. OH WAIT.

U2 literally sounds like pots and pans with a mild riff going through. It just sounds shitty to me.

Could you possibly be more irrelevant?

[Dominarch's Hope]

Whats the alternative, enable their power structure and corruption by feeding the nation for them? Afghanistan isnt literally starving because they threw out the farmers and sold/scrapped the equipment. Afghanistan isnt remotely comparable.


North Korea is though. And in both cases, you should eithet send enough food to feed the whole country fairly well, or let them starve themselves and the lesson be burned into the souls of the survivors. Dont be this damn stupid.


There are several other African countries which have white farmer settlers or had them. Not all of them are even close to Zimbabwe's shitty condition.


Let them die and force a regime change or a reduction in population, give them free food and enable Mugabe and his successor to keep on doing the same shit for decades to come.

We have no moral obligation to help and feed entire nations which have so thoroughly self-destructed. Let them die, and lessen the amount of nations willing to be that goddamned suicidally stupid, or support them and legitimize the horrendous ineptitude.

[SomeDude]

It's different if said self-destruction results from centuries of economic subjugation and exploitation on the part of the colonizer.

[Stark]

We have no moral obligation to help and feed entire nations which have so thoroughly self-destructed. Let them die, and lessen the amount of nations willing to be that goddamned suicidally stupid, or support them and legitimize the horrendous ineptitude.

How do you measure the national will?

[Dominarch's Hope]

It's different if said self-destruction results from centuries of economic subjugation and exploitation on the part of the colonizer.

Still not America's problem. And Zimbabwe would had been fine if they had done a slow transition instead of literally yanking the farms out from the farmers and then selling and scrapping the equipment. Mugabe and his ilk did this, before him, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food.

And Rhodesia wasnt nearly as outright brutal as South Africa.


Now, if you want to talk about West Africa and the Gold Coast, thats different. Waaaayy different.

Africa has multiple regions and issues pertaining to them. It isnt just a blob of pathetic horror.


@Stark

Mugabe and his seize the farms effort had plenty of popular support. Now looked what has happened. How many govts in Africa with white farmers want a repeat? Even if they decide to kick them out, they damn sure wont be doing it the way Mugabe did.

[Stark]

Are you applying the standards of a western representative democracy to Zimbabwe, in which every part of the population expresses their views and the leaders execute that mandate?

That's pretty funny since it isn't even how it works in the west. Are you simpleminded? Bad economic policy destroys a country's livelihood, and your answer is LEAVE THEM TO DIE AS A LESSON TO OTHER BLACK PEOPLE?

[Dominarch's Hope]

Are you saying that Mugabe took power without a large base of popular support, and that his actions were the result of a minority enforcing it upon a majority?

And tell me, how are most other 'black' nations doing? They arent nearly that bad. Like even close. Black Africans are clearly capable of competent self-governance. By competent, I define as "not horrifically imploding thanks to mass starvation that is largely self-inflicted". And its a lesson to the world. Dont do this or support this. Telling competent farmers to fuck off just so your supporters have land is stupid. Mao proved that telling the common farmer to go make steel is really stupid.

But if you want to be all "Nice Guy", dont half ass it. Send as much food as you possibly can spare. Maybe Mugabe will be willing to give it to his people and properly distribute, maybe he has gone compeltely insane and will burn most of it.

Who knows?