I've followed Zimbabwe (morbidly) for years. None of the misfortunes visited upon that country in the past 10 years have surprised me for a second. They were telegraphed by the policies of Robert Mugabe, murderer, thief and one of the most evil men on the planet.
Their most recent misfortune is extrememely high inflation. As in, the cost of everything doubled in one month. I saw this in news articles by major media sources. But I was confused as to why this was happeneing. I know, as an economist, that such inflation can only be caused by the government printing a ton of new money, though it can certainly be exacerbated by taking away farms from productive people and giving them to cronies. But look at these articles, none of which mention printing money:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8P69SIG1.htm
The above article was reprinted in dozens of other sources, NO mention of money printing
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070519/business/business3.html
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/05/17/zimbabwe.html
http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/fullstory.php?newsID=317801223&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=1
Interesting, the TITLE of the above article mentions the "Money printing Zimbabwe central bank" but nothing is mentioned in the text of the article.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21753241-2703,00.html
Remarkably, this article mentioned that Mugabe got his economics degree at the University of London, and that he believes printing money helps to keep prices down!!! Remind me not to get a degree there.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/df072b2a322e6e6f275459d37c9d807c.htm
There is a small mention of some money printing at the very bottom of the article, which is ridden with economic fallacies.
The real story is here:
http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=1717&cat=2
And here (scroll down to Zimbabwe):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation#Hyperinflation_around_the_world
It turns out, for anyone willing to do research, that Robert Mugabe has been printing TRILLIONS of dollars every year. TRILLIONS!!
That is the true reason for the inflation. Yet, in the articles I linked to above, it is hardly mentioned once, and never is the amount of printing even hinted at.
Now, why would that be? My personal take is that people in this country are fed the line that inflation is caused by increased wages and employment. Essentially, the line that what is good for the average joe worker is BAD for the economy! That prices were stable (as in, did not get higher AT ALL) for the first 150 years of US history is never brought up. The writers of these articles are either deliberately avoiding mentioning the link between printing (or "introducing" as the fed does) money and inflation because they want to avoid upsetting people, or, more likely, it simply doesn't even occur to them! Wake up folks, the Federal Reserve is taking money out of your pocket every fricking year, to benefit big businesses and government at the poor and middle class' expense.
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