Shades of Stephenson's Snow Crash !
from slate.com's Today's Papers:
"In a Page One piece, the WSJ notes Zimbabwe's government is about to face a potentially big problem as a Germany-based company that provided the government with lots of special paper to print its currency said it will no longer do business with Mugabe.
With an annual inflation rate estimated at more than 1 million percent, Zimbabwe was a good customer. The currency gets devalued so quickly that new bank notes are introduced all the time, and Mugabe relies on this new money to pay loyalists.
Meanwhile, the citizens have to deal with the consequences. The treasurer of Zimbabwe's opposition party notes that even billions are rarely used in his line of work and have been replaced by quadrillions. "Our economy is too crazy to understand," he said."
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Hyperinflation has devalued the dollar to the extent that trillion dollar bills — "Ed Meeses" — are nearly disregarded and the quadrillion dollar note — the Gipper — is the standard 'small' bill.
"In a Page One piece, the WSJ notes Zimbabwe's government is about to face a potentially big problem as a Germany-based company that provided the government with lots of special paper to print its currency said it will no longer do business with Mugabe.
With an annual inflation rate estimated at more than 1 million percent, Zimbabwe was a good customer. The currency gets devalued so quickly that new bank notes are introduced all the time, and Mugabe relies on this new money to pay loyalists.
Meanwhile, the citizens have to deal with the consequences. The treasurer of Zimbabwe's opposition party notes that even billions are rarely used in his line of work and have been replaced by quadrillions. "Our economy is too crazy to understand," he said."
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From Wikipedia's entry on SnowCrash:
Hyperinflation has devalued the dollar to the extent that trillion dollar bills — "Ed Meeses" — are nearly disregarded and the quadrillion dollar note — the Gipper — is the standard 'small' bill.
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