Sunday, November 22, 2009

A look at inflation: The Zimbabwean dollar

The wikipedia article on the Zimbabwean dollar has a few really interesting pictures the bring out the effects of hyperinflation.



This is a picture of the number of eggs 100 billion dollars could buy when it was issued.




This is a graph of the trading value of the currency over time. Yes, that is a logarithmic scale :)



This is a selection of bills printed between July 2007 to July 2008 to illustrate the hyperinflation rate.



Because of the inability of the Zimbabwean government to get inflation under control, the currency is no longer used.



This isn't something we have a problem with in Canada: We actually experienced deflation in September due to petrol prices being 23% lower than the same month in 2008.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, an IT blogger going off on Africa. Scott Hansleman has started a trend!

    ReplyDelete