In January 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced a 100 Trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill.  This was a worlds first as the only issued legal tender ever with 14 zeros on it.  Sounds absolutely megga impressive, except that this note only had the a value of $30 U.S dollars.

Hyper-Inflation that was crippling Zimbabwe forced banks to produce ridiculously high denomination notes to try to counteract the incredible inflation that was rising by the day.  The introduction of 5 Billion, 50 Billion and 100 Billion Zimbabwe dollar bank notes were a weak attempt to stabilize President Robert Mugabe's floundering country where the inflation rate in January 2009 was at a mere 231,000,0000%

Zimbabwe was once a very prosperous African country, but it declined into political upheaval and economical meltdown under the crass ineptitude of power hungry President Robert Mugabe.  He lost the general election in March 2008 but like most people in power, they hate to give it up, for they love the wealth, importance, the grand titles and the perpetual ego boost and don't really give a stuff about the country or the people they are supposed to govern. "...its good to be the president...you can't beat it, you really can't.. "

Robert Mugabe pictured below...having a laugh !

Mugabe punitively and simply stated that inflation was illegal, displaying the most blatant portrayal of ignorance of how a country operates that can possibly be imagined.  Of course,  the prices of everyday commodities continued to soar at a rate of over 4 million% every week.

Another massive and inept blunder was to issue bearer checks rather than regular bank notes, this was meant to control the hyper inflation by limiting the supply of monies that people could withdraw from the bank, as each note had an expiry date. 

If Mugabe knew anything about history which he obviously didn't, then he would have realized that Germany had gone the same course in 1924 and ended up with complete collapse of their economy as a result.  Expiry dates on bank notes only encourage people to spend recklessly before the money expires and this then accelerates the inflation rate, it doesn't reduce it.

The above 'photo-shopped' image where a wheel barrow itself was worth more than the mountain of $100,000,000,000 dollar Zimbabwe bills within it, and indeed overflowing onto the surrounding ground.  This became a stark reality for all those unfortunate enough to reside in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.  A Zimbabwe Federal Reserve bank note of an awesome 100 billion dollars was at one time worth about $10 US Dollars.

Robert Mugabe's Government made an inept revaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar which led to a 10 Billion to 1 dollar deficit and got progressively worse.  Rather than put effort into the production of goods for export and the maintenance of services, the bank just produced large quantities of money with no economy to support it.  The inflation climbed as if on a rocket to the moon, with an annual inflation rate of 80,000,000,000%.

To combat this hyper-inflation rate the bank just kept on producing notes of progressively high denominations, but as soon as these notes were distributed they were devalued by the escalating inflation.

These notes are now sold as collectors items for about $19.95 they all  feature the Chiremba Balancing Rocks on the front and two vignettes on the back.  On 2nd February 2009 for the 4th time, Zimbabwe revalued their currency  so that the humble $1 Trillion Zimbabwe note was then equivalent to $1 of the new currency.

It was declared on March 26th 2009 that the hyper-inflation had ended with prices in Zimbabwe falling to acceptable levels.  According to the United States C.S.O Central Statistical Office, prices of goods over inflation stabilized at around 3%.

The main reason for this is that Mugabe's government recently adopted the US dollar as the currency for their country, but with the global credit crunch affecting the once almighty US dollar, it remains to be seen if this idea was as astute as first thought.  Which is why many people and governments at the moment are investing in pure gold, which is now pushing up gold's value which currently stands at $1060 per troy ounce at exchange rate dated Oct 23rd 2009.

Whatever  next.......

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