[alexamenos]

A quadrillion dollar check --

It is without doubt the largest cheque ever seen. But it’s worth little more than the paper it’s written on.

The astronomical sum of one quadrillion, seventy-two trillion, four hundred and eighteen billion and three million dollars only – note the only – was drawn on the MBCA Bank in Zimbabwe, part of one of the largest banking groups in Africa.

It was paid by Kasawe Estates, a property company, and was emailed to the Daily Mail by a group of former Rhodesian expatriats who are horrified at Zimbabwe’s incredible rate of inflation – officially 2.2 million per cent, but, British experts say, closer to 12.5 million per cent.

Currency dealers said the plunging value of Zimbabwe dollars made it almost impossible to estimate its value, but some thought it would have been worth no more than a few pounds yesterday -- and certainly even less today.

The incredible cheque, which is believed to be a payment as part of a property deal, was revealed as the Zimbabwe central bank decided to reduce the huge sums that hard-pressed citizens have to deal with by simply knocking 10 zeros off the end.

That means that from Friday, when new bank notes are printed, 10 billion old Zimbabwean dollars become a single dollar.

The desperate move was taken by bank governor Gideon Gono because the nation’s computers, calculators and ATMs faced meltdown because they can’t handle all the zeros involved when bread and staple foods cost billions and trillions of dollars.

The move came a week after Dr Gono introduced a 100 billion-dollar note which is now not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

But analysts said the move would do nothing to end an economic disaster blamed on President Robert Mugabe's land-grab policies which have caused chronic shortages of food and foreign currency.
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Mugabe accuses businesses of unfairly increasing prices as part of a wider plot to incite people against his government and today warned companies that authorities would impose emergency measures if they continued profiteering.
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Mugabe early this year signed into law a bill giving local owners majority control of foreign-owned firms, including mines and banks

You gotta admire Mugabe's consistency....he destroys anything resembling private property rights, prints Zim Dollars as fast as he can, and then blames the failing economy on a conspiracy of businessmen aimed at discrediting his government.