Talk:Zimbabwean dollar

Another milestone...

With the massive devaluation over the last few days, the ZIM$ has now surpassed the Brazilian hyperinflation of the 80s/90s and has moved into 3rd place on the list of all-time record hyperinflation (surpassed only by the Yugoslavian and post-WW II Hungarian hyperinflationary periods). One US$ is now worth more than 2.7 Quintillion 1st Zimbabwe $. If inflation continues at current levels, the all-time Hungarian record will be broken sometime next April.

At OMIR rates, the highest value Z$ banknote is now worth around 1/3 of a US cent. Does anone know if additional new banknotes (e.g. 100,000 / 1,000,000) are currently planned ? Passportguy (talk) 15:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You can't measure hyperinflation by just looking at exchange rates - I believe the Z$ is plummeting not only due to inflation but due to a massive trade deficit as well. --Tango (talk) 17:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that official inflation numbers are better, but as there are none (or only falsified ones), OMIR is the only reliable indicatior of inflation that gets published regularly. You can't get an exact number from it, but whether YOY inflation is at 765 billion % or "only" at 500 billion is almost a mute point.... 91.37.161.242 (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The difference between the devaluation of the currency and inflation could well be quite a significant factor - orders of magnitude, even. Measuring inflation is very difficult because most of the economy is now black market - the official inflation is calculated based on the prices the shops would be selling things at if they had anything to sell, which results in a pretty meaningless number. As the economy becomes more and more dollarised, however, the devaluation of the currency will get closer to inflation, since they would then be measuring the same thing (since everyone would, in effect, be priced in hard currency). --Tango (talk) 21:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Another interesting milestone is the massive gap between the official rate and the parallel rate -- the parallel rate is now over 1000 times what the official rate is! 220.104.132.239 (talk) 21:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's been worse. Before the official rate was "floated" in May, the parallel rate was over 6000 times the official rate. It won't take long to get to that level, though - the official rate is increasing linearly while the parallel rate increases exponentially (or even faster at times). --Tango (talk) 23:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If the ZIM$'s parrell rate is now 1000 times higher than the mid market is the ZIM$'s offical rate really floating? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 01:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, hence the quotes. --Tango (talk) 01:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Talking about (pseudo)-milestones: today the year-on-year increase of the OMIR exceeded one trillion percent...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It's two trillion now... and it's been only a week! Ruby Cored (talk) 13:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

And just under 3 trillion tonight ! Passportguy (talk) 17:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Raise you another trillion to 4 trillion!!! (3.979 trillion % as of today) Ruby Cored (talk) 16:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll bet 10 minutes work on a backlog of the winner's choice that it's over 10 trillion by the end of the week. Any takers? --Tango (talk) 16:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Good job no-one took me up on that bet, I was a (working) day off... --Tango (talk) 12:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

actually I was away over the weekend as well; so I have no idea how the rate go; At least today it's like 14.6 trillion %... so you win this time :P Ruby Cored (talk) 17:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It actually dipped slightly, so it didn't reach 10 trillion until Monday, I was close, though! There's a graph on the page linked to as the source in the article if you want old numbers (not very old, though, since you can't show current and old values on the same scale with growth like this. More than a couple of months back and it looks like it's just zero!) --Tango (talk) 17:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

26 trillion percent today.... if this keeps going they'll have a quadrillion by Halloween! Ruby Cored (talk) 13:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

...and 158 trillion today Ruby Cored (talk) 11:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

If the Zim$ does as bad as it did on the 16&17th it will be Quadrillions of % by the end of the month. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The Zim$ is now at 260 trillion% today $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 08:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

367 trillion % now Ruby Cored (talk) 12:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Its now 1.139 Quadrillion% $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 09:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

and over 23[!] quadrillion today afternoon - Rubycored (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Now = 52 Quadrillion $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 09:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

It maintained nearly half its value - a good day! --Tango (talk) 09:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, i'm going to take my bet back; and shooting for a Quintillion by Hallowe'en! Now a figure like that would be good for trick-treating - Rubycored (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You stand a very good chance of winning that bet. I'll bet we get there by next Wednesday (far from a certain bet, but I think the odds are in my favour). --Tango (talk) 11:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Btw bets: can anybody make a guess when and at which rate will the third dollar be redenominated? --Alexmagnus2 (talk) 12:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Impossible to say. I would expect some larger banknotes to be released in the next week or two, but I don't know when they'll chop noughts off again. It's pretty pointless chopping of noughts when they are coming back as quickly as they are now, so they may not bother until things stabilise. That's not going to happen until the political situation stabilises and who knows when that will be? --Tango (talk) 16:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The Zimbabwe Dollar's devaluation is reaching record speeds. Last month's the inflation of the price of the US Dollar (OMIR) was roughly 422 % p.m. Annualized, that translates to an unbelievable ~ 3.19 x 10^31 or 31,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 percent.

I.e. : If neither the rate of inflation changes nor a revaluation takes place (which is almost certainly going to happen) the ZIM$ will trade at ~ 45,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 45 undecillion per US$ on October 1, 2009. Measured in Z-1 Dollars the rate will have gone from roughly 1:10 in the late 80s to 450 sexdecillion (4.5 * 10^53). Passportguy (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

You mean 422-fold, not 422 percent p.m. (that is 42100%)... still the other numbers are correct, excet that it will be 3.19*10^33% (...*10^31-fold)...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 13:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I must have lost those last 2 zeros somewhere amongst the 30+ others... Passportguy (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

According to new data published by the HHIZ page, prices are currently quadrupling roughly every 7 days. HHIZ lists current inflation as 5.77 trillion %, the OMIR YOY devaluation is 14.65 trillion %.

If inflation continues at this rate, the Z$ wil break Hungary's all-time hyperinflation record by the end of January. But as the rate of inflation seems to be ever accelerating, I'd almost want to bet that we'll get there before year's end. Passportguy (talk) 16:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The political situation is extremely unpredictable at the moment, which makes making long term predictions about the economic situation very difficult. Incidentally, what do you mean by "hyperinflation record"? I would use that term to describe the highest rate of inflation ever, but either you're using it to mean something else (to do with total price change since the start of the crisis, or something) or you're off by one derivative. Did you mean to say "as the rate of increase of inflation seems to be ever accelerating"? (That is, the 3rd derivative of price with respect to time is positive.) --Tango (talk) 16:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That "record" would be the total devaluation effect of a currency during a continuous period of hyperinflation. Sorry for not being completely clear. E.g. the German mark ended up being revalued at 1 billion to 1 new mark, which was roughly equal in terms of value to one mark prior to inflation taking off in 1921. The Hungarians hold the record, with 400 octillion pengö being exchanged for one forint. As the Zimbabwe $ currently stands, a 4th Z$ would have to be exchanged at a rate of 2 quintillion Z1$ to 1 Z4$ to get back to the old year 2000 rate of 50:1 to the US$. If you take the mid 1990s as starting point, when 5 Z$ were roughly equal to 1 US$, you're at a rate of 20 quintillion to 1.

The actual highest monthly rate record is also held by Hungary. Zimbabwe currently has a monthly inflation rate comparable with the peak of what Germany experienced in the 1920s. As for record annual inflation rates, I'd have to do some calculations, I don't have exact figures on that one. Passportguy (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok. It's important to note than the Hungarian hyperinflation lasted about a year, Zimbabwe has been in hyperinflation for about 18 months (depending on how you define it) and is still going strong. Measuring the total devaluation during the hyperinflation is rather arbitrary because of the arbitrary definition of hyperinflation - a country that spent 30 years at 49% month-on-month inflation would have had a massive devaluation (by a factor of 2x10⁶²) but none of it would count as being during hyperinflation. --Tango (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

wasn't the rate of conversion 1 trillion papiermark to 1 Rentenmark? Ruby Cored (talk) 13:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually I doubt it will ever reach the hungarian inflation of 1946 in terms of tempo. Don't know what the highest year-on-year inflation registered there was (I suppose around a septillion percent) the highest month-on-month inflation there was 41.9 quadrillion percent (207% daily on average). The worst day-on-day inflation registered there was around 400%. For the sake of comparison: the worst day-on-day OMIR devaluation so far was 139%.--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 17:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, I can't see the current rapidly increasing inflation slowing any time soon, so it could well get up to those levels. --Tango (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Today the total devaluation was around -340%. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 09:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was. The Zim dollar has already been revalued by more than that - 1000 the first time and 10,000,000,000 the second, makes 10 trillion total. --Tango (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

And now for something completely different... Is today the first time that the OMIR is more than a million times higher than the official rate?--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 16:41, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. --Tango (talk) 18:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

on top of the "laughable" inflation rate; the official rate quoted by the RBZ is just as laughable; so it isn't much a surprise Ruby Cored (talk) 07:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Huh, today's morning OMIR is 493% devalued with respct to the yesterday's afternoon one... So it actually got worse than the Hungarian 1946 inflation - at least in day-on-day terms...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 10:57, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The Value of Zim$ actually rose today. One of many rare sights lately! Rubycored (talk) 13:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

That's an artifact of the OMIR, I think - it often overshoots the real value and corrects it the next day. If you look at the past values it often goes up slightly after a massive drop. A newspaper article today says the cheque rate on Sunday was between $8 billion and $30 billion per GBP, which corresponds to about $5 billion to $20 billion per USD, so the OMIR is still undervaluing the Zim dollar. It will sort itself out over the next couple of days. --Tango (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Cato Institute publishes inflation index for Zimbabwe

The Cato Institute has published a website which lists the current annual inflation rate for Zimbabwe :

"The last official inflation data were released for June and are hopelessly outdated. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been even less forthcoming with money supply data: the most recent money supply figures are ancient history—January 2008. Absent current official money supply and inflation data, it is difficult to quantify the depth and breadth of the still-growing crisis in Zimbabwe. To overcome this problem, Cato Senior Fellow Steve Hanke has developed the Hanke Hyperinflation Index for Zimbabwe (HHIZ). This new metric is derived from market-based price data and is presented in the accompanying table for the January 2007 to present period. As of 26 September 2008, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate was 531 billion percent." (see http://www.cato.org/zimbabwe)

The 531 billion figure is based on inflation from mid-September 07 to mid-September 08 and is likely to rise significantly over the coming months. As the official data by the RBZ is outdated and likely deliberatly understating figures, I suggest we list the Cato number on the main page box in addition to the official figure. Passportguy (talk) 20:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean 08, Sept 09 hasn't happened yet ;). I think we should use this measure alongside the official one. It would be good if we can find independent reliable sources referring to this index to prove notability. --Tango (talk) 21:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I've corrected the typo in my above comment Passportguy (talk) 21:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

As for reliablity, see Cato Institute and Steve Hanke (author of the index). As for other sources mentioning this index you can find the usual newspaper menntions, e.g. [1], but you won't find many publications mentioning it as it is quite new and only of interest to a very limited amount of people. Passportguy (talk) 21:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like that newspaper article was written by the creator of the index, so that one won't do it! Independent newspaper articles would be fine. --Tango (talk) 21:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

There are now a variety of sources quoting the figure, e.g. The Zimbawean, the Harare Tribune and others. So I'll put the figure on the main page for now. Passportguy (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Btw : I just checked the Cato site, and the inflation figure has now been revised upward - from 531 billion to 2 trillion % Passportguy (talk) 14:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Nearly 6 trillion now. The official figure of just over 200 million is laughable! --Tango (talk) 18:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The official figure is for July. It actually was ~200 million in July.--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 20:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. People are still quoting that figure today, though - they don't get what's going on! --Tango (talk) 22:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

No more Siyabonga?

According to their website; the RBZ has "temporarily" stopped all RTGS transactions so there would be no updates from them for a while... Ruby Cored (talk) 12:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess we'll have to start scouring the newspaper articles looking for cash rates again. Either that, or stick with just the OMIR - other than being more volatile, it seemed to roughly agree with the parallel rate. --Tango (talk) 12:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Cash rates

Should we be reporting the cash rates somewhere? According to [2] the exchange rate for cash is about Z$1000 per US$. Interestingly, compared with the electronic rate of Z$650,000 per US$ given in that article (seems a few days out of date), that means a Z$1 note is actually worth Z$650 - supply and demand applied to notes! --Tango (talk) 13:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about these newspaper article rates. They've always been significantly lower than quoted bank rates, even before the current cash crisis. And consider this. If they actually were such huge diffeneces in rates, why wouldn't people buy dollars for Z$ at a rate of 1000, then travel to South Africa, wire the money back in via Siyabonga and then get payed 1,000,000 for the same amount of dollars ? You've made 100,000 % in just a few days ! I.e.l If you started off with US$1000 you now have US$1,000,000 ! I realize it wouldn't work right now, as the banking system is defunct, but it would have until a few days ago, and I somehow do see millions of rich Zimbabweans around. So I'd strongly suspect these rates, most of them quoted by journalists outside of Zimababwe, are just very out of date, and/or are heavily reliant on official government sources, which tend to grossly understate inflation and exchange rates. Passportguy (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Read the article I linked to, it talks about people doing just that. The bit you're missing is the withdrawal limits. You need to be able to withdraw the cash in order to exchange it at the cash rates and unless you have the appropriate government contacts you can only withdraw $20,000 a day (which you need to use to buy food, so can't use it for currency dealing!). If you do have those contacts, though, then you can make massive returns and according to the article people do. There has been a massive cash shortage in Zim for months if not longer - that's why they have withdrawal limits. --Tango (talk) 15:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

New 50,000 Dollar bill coming up

According to AFP a new $50,000 bill will be issued today. Passportguy (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I reas an article (International Herald Tribune maybe) saying they were on the streets as of Monday morning, some befor banks opened due to corruption. Tarcus (talk) 20:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll bet they'll release 100,000 and 250,000 before end of October. Ruby Cored (talk) 17:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll bet on $500,000 by the end of November. They'll need $250,000 notes by the end of October (they could use them now!), but I'm not sure they'll actually have them. --Tango (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well eventually they will have to tie the currency to another or adopt a foreign currency. What do you think will come first? Enlil Ninlil (talk) 02:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably best if they join the Rand zone of countries, retaining the Zimbabwe dollar, but having it pegged at 1:1. Namibia seems to be doing fine with their dollar equal to rand. Tarcus (talk) 05:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

won't be possible with the political and financial system in shambles at the monent; but I would be optimistic and see the dollar stabilising after 4th or 5th revaluation after the leaders gets the agreement sorted. But before then there's no way the Reserve Bank can keep its peg. Ruby Cored (talk) 07:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

If they peg to a hard currency they have to stop printing money indiscriminately. Given that hardly anyone is formally earning more than a pittance and very few businesses are still operational, tax revenue must be effectively zero (well, it's probably several quadrillion dollars, but that is effectively zero in Zimbabwe!) and no-one in their right mind would lend the Zimbabwean government money, so printing cash is their only source of income. Now, legitimate public spending is pretty low anyway, I think, so that wouldn't drop much, but the salary and perks of the senior members of government would take a massive hit - they would never go with that! Hyperinflation will continue in Zimbabwe until there is a change in the political regime, which is looking less and less likely by the day. Sooner or later the people will say "enough is enough" and they'll be a good old-fashioned revolution, but that could a while yet - as long as the army is getting at least one meal a day, nothing will happen, but eventually the government won't be able to afford even that and then it's fair game. --Tango (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Just saw the photo of the note on eBay earlier (sold for whopping $50!!); again they used low-quality "Chinese" paper without watermark and security thread... it looks like they also ran out of the old RBZ-watermarked paper they used to print the Z2$ before the revaluation... Ruby Cored (talk) 07:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

So to get things clear; they have absolutely no security features. There's nothing to stop forgers with colour photocopiers having a field day. Any news on forgery yet? Worth getting it in the article Tarcus (talk) 08:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

not "absolutely" but "almost" no security feature at all; the $20,000 and $50,000 have the iridescent strip at centre left of the note. as for forgery; yes it's already widespread (but there's no sourceful article to link it to; i got the comment here: [3] ) to a stage where people are refusing to accept $10k and $20k notes because of fears over forgery!! Ruby Cored (talk) 08:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect too much in terms of forgery. It does take time to design and etch your plates, buy the printers and get the paper. Even if you scan the bills and then make photocopies : At a value of ½ US cent for the $50,000 note, you'll be losing money by the time you pay for printer, paper and ink. Plus the risk of detection and pubishment. If you're going to forge money, you'd more likely go straight for the US Dollar and then cash in on those. Passportguy (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Forging US dollars is really difficult and beyond the means of all but a few specialists. Forging Zimbabwean dollars is easy - anyone with a decent industrial printer can probably do it (a simple PC printer could probably do a half decent effort and people aren't going to closely inspect every note in a large brick of cash, so as long as you put a couple of real ones at the top you're probably ok). Your point about the cost of ink and paper exceeding the value of the notes is a good one, though - it might be worth forging notes as soon as they are released, but within a couple of weeks they're worthless so there is no point until the next denomination is released. Although, you do need to remember that physical cash is worth more than its face value due to the cash shortage, so the notes are worth more than you might think. --Tango (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I not so sure if you're not overestimating the value of cash Z$. No-one wants Zimbabwe Dollars any longer, either in cash or credit. Many shops sell goods only against foreign currency. If they take Z$, they do it at huge premiums, which is what is fueling inflation even further. Passportguy (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what the cash exchange rate is now, but the article I linked to a few sections above made it quite clear there was a sizeable difference between the cash rate and the electronic rate a week or so ago, I doubt that's changed. Only certain shops are allowed to accept payment in foreign currency, other shops take Zim cash or cheques (or hard currency under the table, perhaps). From my interpretation of the articles I've read, the Zimbabwean economy is far from dollarised, it's moving in that direction, but it's not there yet. I suspect a lack of foreign currency could be slowing the rate the economy is moving over to it - there are basically no exports and no-one outside Zimbabwe has any use for Zim dollars, so the only source of foreign currency is people abroad sending money to family in Zim, which doesn't supply the market with enough for everyone to trade in it. --Tango (talk) 22:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at this recent article: [4]. It says prices for buying something with a credit are 1000 times greater than with cash. Some of that difference could because it takes a few days for the transaction to clear so they have to factor in several days of inflation, but that doesn't account for all of it (inflation over that time scale is on the order of 300%, not 100,000%), I can only assume the rest of the difference is because of the cash shortage. Do you have an alternative explanation? --Tango (talk) 22:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

yeah; my guess is that since cash shortages they wouldn't be able to take the money out once the money's cleared in the credit - and if they were to buy other goods on credit they would also suffer the 1000x premium - which all makes the "inflation" of goods purchased on credit all but higher! Ruby Cored (talk) 05:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I should've made it double clear that i found the note on eBay - which means the value sold is the collector's value not the actual cash-note face value. And i'm sure the numismatic market for Zim$ notes have been hot even since the Z2$ Ruby Cored (talk) 05:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

On the 17th on OMIR, the $50,000 bill is only worth US 0.04¢, that makes it the least valued highest banknote, but would the paper cost more than that? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 01:37, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Graph of the Official vs Parallel market rate

I think it would be a good idea to include the said graph somewhere on the article (the Japanese version of the article has it: [5] ); so we can show how much the parallel/OMIR rate is rising relative to the "official" rate. What do you think? - Ruby Cored (talk) 07:28, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 07:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been making a graph in excel over the past year or so, using all the data in this article as my source. I have the official, parallel, and omir plotted on a log scale going back to the original floating of the official rate in May 2008. I also have a graph of the official vs. parallel going back to 2001. I'll see what I can do about posting these... I think they would certainly add value to the article. CecilPL (talk) 16:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Done! I've uploaded it to [6]. I'm not too good at editing wiki layouts, so if someone wants to add it into the article somewhere, please go ahead.CecilPL (talk) 17:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent work! A few possible improvements (it's perfectly usable as it is if you don't feel like devoting more time to it): 1) Personally, I prefer 10¹⁰ to 1E+10 (perhaps give labels only every other integer exponent to make room), either way I think it should be consistent along the whole scale. 2) Some vertical grid lines and more labels on the x-axis would be nice. 3) Somehow marking on the revaluations would be good, they should at least be mentioned in the description (since the numbers you're using are sort of fictitious in that the rates were never actually reported with those numbers, they were reported with a load more noughts). 4) Should this go on commons? I imagine other projects could use it. --Tango (talk) 17:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback! I've updated the image now ([7]). I added vertical gridlines for each Jan 1st, and made the vertical axis labels exponents rather than the ugly Excel format. I'm not exactly sure how to mark the revaluations. I'd rather keep all the data points in the same base currency to show the full extent of the hyperinflation, though maybe we can add vertical lines or something? CecilPL (talk) 19:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks good! I agree that it's best to convert the old figures to the new currency. Just some marks and labels on the x-axis would be enough to show it, maybe with vertical lines too. --Tango (talk) 23:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Impressive! IT could work perfectly in conjunction to the one i suggested earlier. As regarding to the revaluations. Personally we could try "splitting" the graph into 3; each for each generations of the Zim$ (like one for first dollar until 01 Aug 06, one for the second dollar and third for the present) but it's my personal opinion and one graph could just was well do! Ruby Cored (talk) 18:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Good work. The only problem I see is that the graph seems to indicate that the official rate is almost equal to the OMIR/parallel rate, while in reality it is much, much lower. Passportguy (talk) 02:49, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget at around May 2008 the official rate was "floating" very close to the parallel rate; before diverging off again at around July Ruby Cored (talk) 10:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised you can see them both, even on a logarithmic scale! We should include such a graph for as long as it is possible with a reasonable scale, that might not be long (unless they have a sudden outbreak of common sense with the official rate and add a few noughts). --Tango (talk) 10:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Check this out [8] the OMIR rate shoots off vertically when the "official" rate is just ever so slightly visible in terms of taking off; though it has only the datapoints up to the redenomination ... Ruby Cored (talk) 15:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It's far worse than that now. At the very least the scale would have to be logarithmic, it could soon need to be double logarithmic (ie. log(log(x)) ). --Tango (talk) 17:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

OMIR updated twice a day

It looks like the OMIR given on [9] is now being updated twice a day. Do we want to include two rates a day in our article as well? I'm undecided... --Tango (talk) 17:14, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

We could; until someone complains then we'd remove the "morning" rate. Ruby Cored (talk) 18:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should keep both rates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by $1000000000ten0one1 (talk • contribs) 08:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. We are losing perspective here. This is an encyclopedia article, not a currency traders' database. Even the daily rates are cluttersome, not to mention a breach of the original research policy. I also have doubts that the OMIR remains relevant to real life in Zimbabwe. Greg Grahame (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Well; without any other third party exchange rate other than OMIR; added with totally meaningless "official" rate; I doubt there's any other "relevant" sites that's useable. Rubycored (talk) 12:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

They're not OR, they're from reliable secondary sources. The exchange rate between US dollars and Zim dollars is extremely relevant to life in Zimbabwe and the OMIR is the only reliable estimate we have of that rate. However, I do agree that having daily values is unnecessarily cluttersome and unencyclopaedic - replacing most of them with a graph would be better. Keep weekly or monthly rates as numbers (maybe with the most recent few daily rates) and let the graph show everything else. --Tango (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that one (the afternoon) rate is enough. The problem I have with graphs is that while they are nice to look at and give you a good indication of what is happening, you can't get exact data from them. Compare the graphs on http://www.zimbabweanequities.com/#c1 and try finding out what the exact value of the Z$ was on October 10, for example.

Is there a possibilty we could have a collapsible table, which would show the current rate at the top and provide more details back data in a semi-hidden table that can be opened when such information is deemed interesting by the user? Akin to "Passports" link table at the bottom of this page Passports#External_links - Passportguy (talk) 12:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

We could go with that; if there's a way; especially with the rate table for the second dollar being nowadays obsolete Rubycored (talk) 12:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Why would people go to an encyclopaedia exact historical exchange rates? We can link to that site from which they can download the Excel spreadsheet if they want the exact numbers. The approximate numbers you can get off a graph (the Oct 10 rate, I'd estimate was 4 million, although I think we can produce a better graph than that. [The actual rate was 4,183,564.08 - go me! Although, to be fair, I am a mathematician, so I'm probably better at reading off a log scale than most.]) should be plenty for our readers (along with a link to more detailed figures). --Tango (talk) 12:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Historical OMIR

Don't know if anyone noticed this but the OMIR page now has a link to a spreadsheet of historical OMIR values extending back to January 2007. I've used those in compiling the graph I just uploaded - do we want to work them into the article? CecilPL (talk) 17:18, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It might be better to just have the graph and get rid of the daily values (keep weekly or monthly ones, perhaps with the daily ones for the last week) - a graph contains the same information in a much smaller space (we would need to keep the graph up-to-date, of course). Our readers shouldn't have any need for the exact values, we can include a link to the spreadsheet for those that do. --Tango (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should use both on the article. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 21:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the graph, as you can see on http://www.zimbabweanequities.com/#c1 , is that you can't really read anything more than even a couple of days old. E.g. if you look at the 1 month graph, you see a straight horzontal line up to October 15, then an upward line to Oct 21, and then an almost vertical line. On the 3 month graph its horizontal to somewhere around Oct 14 (?) , then vertical. Generally these graphs aren't much use, because of scaling problems. Passportguy (talk) 02:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Now they switched to the logarithmic scale... It show how bad the inflation goes if one needs logarithmic scale to show a 14-day graph! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexmagnus2 (talk • contribs) 10:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a logarithmic scale is absolutely essential for plotting hyperinflation. It may not be long before a double logarithmic scale is needed. --Tango (talk) 12:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Well should we use the rates on the article?$1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 08:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should use the rates. Aeiuo (talk) 23:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Archive?

I think it's time to archive another 10 or so topics from the current talk page; it's getting pretty long already and many of them haven't been in discussion since start of September... Ruby Cored (talk) 10:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Done Passportguy (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Worst Hyperinflation

I guess the worst hyperinflation in world history is going on in Zimbabwe.Price in ZWD doubles every 14 hours these days.

Where do you get that from? The inflation figures from Cato ([10]) show inflation averaging 33% a day over the last week. That corresponds to doubling every 2 and a bit days. It's not far off the worst ever, but it's not there yet. --Tango (talk) 12:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry.But the OMIR ends more than 8 times yesterday.Today the half-life of ZWD is fewer than 8 hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.41.204 (talk) 11:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The devaluation of local currency is not a measure of hyperinflation. Inflation is the change in local currency prices between two times. While inflation will generally cause the currency to devalue relative to foreign currencies, there are other things that can cause such devaluation as well (in the case of Zimbabwe, their enormous trade deficit is going to have an effect). Of course, since a large number of prices in Zimbabwe are now pegged to foreign currency, inflation and exchange rates are very closely linked, but they aren't the same. Let's wait until Cato release their next prices index before we jump to any conclusions. --Tango (talk) 13:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree.But the OMIR is really crazy.Half-life? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.222.10.2 (talk) 01:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I bet it's a pun to imply "Time for Zim$ to lose half of its value" Rubycored (talk) 06:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The devaluation of the Zim$ isn't exponential, so it doesn't have a half life (at least, not a constant one). Looking at the graphs, I'd say it's double exponential (ie. proportional to $e^{e^{x}}$). That means it has a constant half-half-life (I've probably made that word up!), ie. the time it takes for the half-life to halve. I would need to download the spreadsheet of historical values to work out what that is, and that seems to involve registering with the website which I don't feel like doing. --Tango (talk) 11:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Tango: Just for you! [11] This is a plot of log10(OMIR) against time from Jan 1, 2007 to today plotted on a log-scale graph. Note this implies it's growing even faster than double exponential. CecilPL (talk) 16:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! It's pretty close to double exponential until the last few months and then it's gone even faster. And remember, we're talking about inflation which is the rate of increase of prices, so that means prices are growing faster than triple exponential! Wow! --Tango (talk) 16:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This week saw a record devaluation of the Z$, the rate of the US$ inflating by 81,272 % in one week. The OMIR is now roughly 1 septillion Z1$. If the current rate of devalaution persist next week, it is going to break Hungary's all-time record in the first week of November Passportguy (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Quadrillion dollar cheque

Found this page just now [12]. Looks like it was worth about $1500 US using the parallel rate of 750 billion on July 23rd. It probably doesn't belong in this article, but I thought you guys might enjoy it. CecilPL (talk) 20:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

You have to love the "only"! There's barely enough space left to warrant drawing a line. --Tango (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

And this too [13]; funny how the "Castle" costs 5 times LESS than "Dinner B"! (I know it's a drink; but with receipts like this it's still funny.) - Rubycored (talk) 06:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Real Z3$ value

I don't think that both official rate and OMIR has something common with reality. Official rate is only wishes of Goro and OMIR price means rate of Z3$ if somebody would like to buy this currency in large amouns (but nobody since months didn't). The truth lies probably somewhere in the middle, maybe there sould be another table with prices of everyday shopping objects like bread? (i.e. when OMIR was about 500,000 newspaper in Harare costed Z3$ 1,000). 83.14.232.140 (talk) 14:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

In the adsense of parallel rates, the OMIR rate is the only indicator of the value of the Z$. It does have a relation to the value of the currency. Remember it is based on actually prices people are paying for stocks. It may well be that currently the "street value" of the Zimbabwe dollar is slightly higher. Buying power is never completely equal to currency value, but never too far off. If it were, the market would regulate that, i.e. people would start buying shares in London and then selling them in Harare, making huge profits. Even if the "buying power" of the Z3$ is 50 Billion instead of 98 today - at the current rate of inflation that is almost a mute point.

I'm not good at economic themes - but if "buying power" for stock and for simple evertyday transactions like buing bread are the same there is no phisically possibility to buy anything for Z3$ - nowadays every transaction must be in USD or ZAR (or other forgein currency) or simply barter. High valued note is now Z3$ 50,000 and with today OMIR there must be a hundreds thousands of these notes to buy a newspaper. 83.14.232.140 (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Shares are purchased electronically, newspapers are purchased with cash. Due to the cash shortage, there is a significant difference in buying power between Z$1 on a computer screen and Z$1 in your hand. --Tango (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Also The OMIR rate is a rate people are paying for the Z$. You give a certain amount of shares in Old Mutual and get payed a certain amount of Zimbabwe Dollars for them. As you could also have sold the same shares for Pounds or Rand, you can easily calculate what one Pound or Rand equall to in Z$.

Not much is being sold in Zimbabwe for Z$ these days, as many shops sell what little they have only for foreign currency. This has lead to a massive decrease in the value of the currency, as essentially, no-one wants to deal in it anymore. The problem with prices quoted in newspapers is that they are usually days if not weeks old. And at an inflation rate of more than 50 trillion %, just a few hours is a world of a difference. Passportguy (talk) 14:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You also need to specify whether the rate is electronic or cash, because they are very different (due to the extreme cash shortage). The OMIR is an electronic rate, the rate that is significant for most Zimbabweans is the cash rate. I think the Z$ is still quite widely used since it's what a lot of people get paid in (in the public sector, anyway, although most of them are on strike most of the time). With no exports to speak of, it is very difficult to get foreign currency into the country (which is a significant factor in the currency devaluation - foreign currency is in high demand but very low supply), so I'm not sure how many people actually have the foreign currency necessary to buy things in those shops that have permission to trade in forex (those that have relatives abroad sending them handouts, mainly - I think that's the main source of forex in Zim). --Tango (talk) 15:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Tango : While a trade deficit may contribute to the devalueation of a currency somewhat, the main factor in the Z$ devaluation is simply inflation : At last week's inflation rates (77,800 p.m.), prices double roughly every 3 days. This week's inflation is likely even higher. Passportguy (talk) 15:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be the case. By the OMIR, the Zim dollar devalued by a factor of 29 in the week from 10/10 to 17/10. The prices index increased by a factor of 7 over that week. That's a big discrepancy - in real terms, the Z$ devalued by a factor of 4 against the US$, that devaluation is caused by other factors than inflation. (Disclaimer: the OMIR is extremely volatile, so these numbers may not be entirely accuruate. Ideally, I would do the same calculations over a longer timescale but things are moving so fast that going back more than a week makes your numbers obsolete.) --Tango (talk) 16:35, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

For the week 17/10 to 24/10, the CATO prices index increased by a factor of 55, the OMIR increased by a factor of 813. I think that's a sufficient difference to convince anybody that the currency devaluation is due to more than just inflation! --Tango (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that the electronic rates and the cash rates are now completely different things. Because of withdrawal limits, cash is scarce with respect to electronic money. It would be hard to determine cash exchange rates unless you had someone on the ground to observe, so the electronic rate, which for most purposes is the OMIR, is the only thing we have that can be verified. But maybe it should be made clear somewhere that the electronic and cash rates are different. 128.253.197.150 (talk) 01:13, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The cash rates are reported in newspapers occasionally. We used to just scour the papers every day for rate and post them before we discovered reliable sources of daily rates - we can go to that (I've already posted one cash rate, there was another published the same day in the same magnitude ($45k rather than $50k, but close enough) so it seems reliable. --Tango (talk) 12:06, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps someone could post some real-world prices of various things such as newspapers, bus fares, etc., on various dates, as a kind of sample? I found that quadrillion-dollar check and the multi-billion-dollar dinner to be very informative. If someone in Zimbabwe could take some photos, that would be fantastic and much more memorable than the dry OMIR figures (not that those aren't informative!). Heian-794 (talk) 20:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we have anyone on the ground in Zimbabwe (with regular power cuts it's probably tricky to get online). Some example prices would be good, but they would out-of-date within a day. With the OMIR, we get numbers every day (even twice a day now), so we always have realistic numbers. If we tried to post actual price we would never keep up with the changes. --Tango (talk) 00:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course they would be out of date in a day, but they would still serve as a good historical record of what things cost at a particular moment in time. Even a comparison of OMIR versus consumer prices "on the ground" at various dates throughout this crisis would be valuable. Hopefully we can dig up more ephemera like those checks and receipts, get definitive dates for them, and post them here as historical evidence. Heian-794 (talk) 01:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Lopping off zeros

Ok, how's this going to work? If you can only withdraw Z$50,000 at a time and all balances are rounded to the nearest Z$1,000,000, the banks are basically giving anyone with a balance of at least Z$500,000 a free Z$50,000 note a day... Is this evidence that the cash economy is becoming insignificant so it doesn't matter that they're giving out free cash? Are almost all transactions done electronically now? (Which must be hard to organise seeing as banks can't transfer money between eachother.) --Tango (talk) 23:59, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe so; given the "face value" of that $50,000 note in itself. Rubycored (talk) 15:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes. I think the Z$50,000 note is worth a little under US$1 at the moment. I guess that really doesn't make any difference to anything - most transactions must be done by cheque these days, I expect. --Tango (talk) 16:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The return of the Quadrillion Dollar cheques; part 2!! Rubycored (talk) 17:49, 25 October 2008 (UTC)