Coins DIG

One reason people don't always trust bank notes is because the notes may not necessarily be worth the paper they were printed on. Bank notes that have depreciated to the point of being worthless have ended their lives rather ignobly in the past as toilet paper, wallpaper or some other less than dignified way.

Zimbabwe has recently experienced what is likely the worst inflation in world economic history. What do you do with a bank note which has little or no purchasing power, but has a denomination that includes nine zeroes or more as part of the numeral?

Wilf Mbanga, a Zimbabwe citizen living in the United Kingdom because he has been branded an "enemy of the people" by the Zimbabwe government of Robert Mugabe, has the answer. He uses the worthless Zimbabwe paper bank notes to make posters and billboard advertisements for his newspaper The Zimbabwean, winning the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival award for outdoor advertising as well as a gold lion in the media category for his innovative efforts.

The ads are the product of the South African agency TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris/Johannesburg, which has termed the advertising campaign as one of the most "eloquent symbols" of the economic state in which Zimbabwe finds itself. The poster campaign includes the slogans "Thanks to Mugabe this money is wallpaper," "Z$250,000,000 cannot buy the paper to print this poster on," "It's cheaper to print this on money than on paper," and "Fight the regime that has crippled a country." Mbanga's newspaper carries the banner "A voice for the voiceless."

Mbanga writes the "Comment is Free" blog at The Guardian newspaper's web site in addition to publishing his own Zimbabwean newspaper. His target audience is not people living in Zimbabwe, since his newspaper has to pay a 55 percent luxury tax in order to be imported, but to Zimbabwe citizens living in Great Britain or in southern Africa (specifically in South Africa and Botswana). In this way, the newspaper is subsidized when it is imported into Zimbabwe.

On Jan. 16, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced a Z$100 trillion bank note that had an initial value of about $33 U.S. on the black market. This was the final note issued in the Third Dollar series.

On Feb. 2, Zimbabwe lobbed 12 zeros off its currency, introducing its Fourth Dollar bank note series. This meant a 1,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollar bank note from the Third Dollar series could be exchanged for Z$1 in the new series, the earlier series intended to be phased out by July 1. Notes were issued in denominations of Z$1, Z$5, Z$10, Z$20, Z$50, Z$100, and Z$500. No coins were issued, although some older coins were encouraged to be re-introduced into circulation.

On April 12, Economic Planning Minister Elton Mangoma suspended all use of the Fourth Dollar series "for at least a year" as month-to-month inflation soared to 2,600.2 percent, according to Central Statistical Office figures. In July 2008, annual inflation had risen to 231 million percent in Zimbabwe. Foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, became de facto legal tender. Even Zimpost, the Zimbabwe postal service, began charging customers in U.S. dollars for stamps in Zimbabwe dollar denominations. Zimbabwe's central bank was simply issuing too much paper money, a basic principal that should be learned in an Economics 101 college course.

In his first budget report, Zimbabwe Finance Minister Tendai Biti said, "The death of the Zimbabwe dollar is a reality we have to live with. Since October 2008 our national currency has become moribund."

Perhaps so, but as Mbanga might agree, at least the worthless paper money has some redeeming value as a symbol of the economic chaos in Zimbabwe.

Source: numismaster.com