02 June 2008

Inflationary Money of Zimbabwe

A cousin of ours brought this $500,000,000 bill back from Africa for the kids:
 


Back of Bill:
 

Note that it has both an issuance date, and an expiration date. It also has watermarks that are not visible in this scan. I think this bill is worth less than one US dollar currently.

One a tangential note, the GAO just reported that the Bush administration is leaving the US $53 Trillion in debt (32 trillion more than 2000). The result of expensive wars while continuing to lower taxes.

The debt is about $455,000 per American household. The next generation will be paying dearly for our profligacy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

About 30c and probably 15 by the end of the week.

Conservative politician in NZ said once, inflation is immoral. Not particularly conservative myself, but I think those are wise words.

I believe Britain has just finished paying off its WWII debts to the USA.

Who did the USA borrow that from?

What is that 70K per man, woman and child?

CityKin said...

^$175,000 per living breathing American. We owe the debt to whoever buys our bonds. Many of the payees are in the Far East.

5chw4r7z said...

What about the $300 billion farm bill that Bush vetoed because as he called it "a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices" I'm pretty sure it was spear headed by the Democrats voted in to reduce spending.

CityKin said...

^I'm with you there, 5chwartz, I completely agree. It just bugs the hell out of me that Bush wants us to have our cake as we eat our kids portions. I mean if you want to increase drug benefits, and run 2 wars, you need to ask for sacrifice from the citizens. He only asks for sacrifice from those in the military IMO.

Jimmy_James said...

"The result of expensive wars while continuing to lower taxes."

Actually, lowering taxes is a good thing. It leaves money in the pockets of citizens and corporations who employ people and make money for investors, which stimulates the economy, keeps unemployment low, and actually raises tax revenue. The problem is that the gov't spends way too much money, and does so frivolously. What drives me crazy is that people complain that Bush is too conservative, when he's actually extremely liberal when it comes to gov't spending and increasing the size of the federal gov't.

Anonymous said...

where did you get your number? I can only find a number around $10 trillion?

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/new-money/2008/10/09/maxing-out-the-national-debt-clock.html

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/