Talk:Zimbabwean dollar/Archive 2

Coins

Will the 1¢ and the 5¢ coins going to go back into circulation and are they introducing new $5 coins to circulate with the old $5 or not? (I'm getting confused with all the articles about the new dollar). Also you can see the old coins at [1]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by $1000000000ten0one1 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think they are still legal tender, but 5 Zim cents is about 0.1 US cents and soon to be much less, so I'm not sure it really matters. --Tango (talk) 23:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The RBZ's website says that 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, $1, $2, and $5 coins of the first dollar are now legal tender, at face value (effectively a 10 trillion-fold increase in value!), and says that $10 and $25 coins will also be introduced. I wonder whether they'll actually make those coins, though, given how quickly they'll be worthless. So, 1 cent and 5 cent are not, apparently, even theoretically legal tender. Nik42 (talk) 22:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually I have some hopes Zimbabwe finally found to a kind of stability of the currency. Look at the OMIR. When did you see the last time that the highest OMIR goes to more than two weeks back?(it was July 22nd).--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 22:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Because the OMIR is determined by stock prices it varies quite wildly. The July 22nd peak was probably just the stock market making a mistake, it happens. I'd love it if the Zim economy stabilised, but it's not going to happen spontaneously. --Tango (talk) 18:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Still bearer cheques?

Are the new banknotes still bearer cheques,or are they actual real banknotes with no expiry dates, as last issued in 2003?Tarcus (talk) 22:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think they're real banknotes. --Tango (talk) 23:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes the new banknotes are real "banknotes". $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 01:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Zimbabwe exchange rate

Why has the RBZ not issued a rate since 5th Aug? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 06:33, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess the try the fixed rate again. Like they did at the beginning pf the second dollar.--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 09:37, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Inflation Quotes

The last CSO figure was 9,030,000 %. However siyabonga is using a 100,000,000% rate. Does anyone know how siyabonga gets its rates? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 21:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

BBC [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7569894.stm ] stated that the official figure went to 11.25 million % Ruby Cored (talk) 13:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

XE.com

Why are we reporting the XE.com as an offical rate source? Aeiuo (talk) 06:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't know. It can't really be official, as the only source for this rate is the RBZ

I have no idea. What actually is XE.com's rate? I think xe just makes its own offcial rates (that aren't really offical). $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 04:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Should we consider deleting XE.com's rates? Aeiuo (talk) 04:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed them. --Tango (talk) 04:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Zimbabwean currency

I have found scans of the New (third) dollar at [2]. Should we replace the $250 million banknote in the table. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 08:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the $250,000,000 should be replaced by a third dollar banknote. I think the $100 banknote should replace the $250,000,000 banknote because it is the highest valued note there is a scan of and the other banknotes are practically worthless. However the $1 banknote is the base unit of the ZWD so maybe it and/or the $1 coin shold replace it. What banknote and/or coin should replace the $250,000,000 banknote? Aeiuo (talk) 09:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree we should use the $100 banknote. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 11:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Two different rates on RBZ site

Has anybody noticed, the RBZ home page quotes a different rate to the one linked to on the foreign currency page? The former currently quotes:

FOREIGN CURRENCY RATES 01/09/2008 Interbank Exchange Rate ZWD 37.15 per US$1

While the later links to a page [Daily Interbank Exchange Rates Z$ per US$ Monday 01 September 2008] which quotes:

34.83 Z$ per US$

Is this perhaps an explanation for XE's rates being different to RBZ? BTW, as both unofficial sources now quote >> ZWD 100 per USD, should not the ZWD return to the Least valued currency unit page TiffaF (talk) 13:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The cutoff for that page is 1000, not 100, give it a few more weeks! --Tango (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, looking at the numbers I see it has gone over 1000 in the past couple of days, I guess that was just a typo on your part. I suggest waiting a few days to make sure it's stable above that rate, as it does sometimes drop down soon after a massive increase, but we will probably need to add it again soon. --Tango (talk) 00:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well they used the 28th rate twice (28 & 29th and both were even dated 28th) so the 34.83 rate might actually be the rate for the 29th and the 37.15 rate the rate for the 1st. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 23:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Banknote value

Acording to the Least valued currency unit page the current highest valued banknote ($500) is only worth 2¢ (on the blackmarket). Does that make it the least valued, highest banknote? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 05:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

1,000 dollar note Setp 19 2008

Why was my edit removed? The new highest value note in Zim is the 1000 dollar note. "Due to spiraling inflation on September 18 the federal bank of Zimbabwe issued a 1000 dollar note, and raised the maximum daily withdrawal rate to 1000 dollars as well. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.251.87.214 (talk) 19:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it was just a mistake - the edits after yours were vandalism and someone just revert too far. Feel free to put your edit back, it looks like useful information to have in the article (and thank you for referencing it!). --Tango (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Decimal Places

The figures quoted on SWRadioAfrica, Siyabonga-Tatenda and OMIR (Zim Equities) are really intended as rates against GBP Sterling, which are then converted into Z$-USD rates by dividing by the GBP-USD rate. Since the Z$-GBP rates are currently quoted to the nearest approx 1,000 I am not sure why it is necessary to quote the Z$-USD rate on wikipedia to the nearest 0.01 This page is about the Z$, not about the latest fluctuation in the GBP-USD exchange rate. Could we ensure the quotation of the Z$-USD rate is of a comparable level of accuracy as the originally source Z$-GBP rate ? The GBP-USD exchange rate is never quoted on an interbank basis to more accuracy than about 0.0025 % I would suggest that with USD-Z$ currently around 70,000 we quote the USD-Z$ rate to the nearest 1 rather than 0.01 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.186.86 (talk) 02:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

In case of the OMIR, the rate gets calculated with highest precision for both GBP and USD. --Alexmagnus2 (talk) 11:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

New $10,000 and $20,000 banknotes

Today according to [3], Zimbabwe introduced new $10,000 and $20,000 banknotes and raised the withdrawl limit for induvisuals to $20,000, however Z$20,000 (only) = 3.6¢US. I wonder if the paper used to make the banknotes is acually worth more than the value of the banknote. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 03:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know where they're getting their banknotes these days? They must have run out of the ones they had stockpiled from the German company by now. --Tango (talk) 14:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The notes are being printed on ordinary paper with no security features [4] 193.1.209.200 (talk) 12:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

A question on coins : Were they ever actually issued ? Given the expense of production and the rate of inflation I somehow doubt they ever went to the trouble. Assuming a 1 cent coin were to weigh around 2 grams, you'd now need 200,000 kilograms or 200 metric tons of metal to buy something the value of 1 US$ ! Passportguy (talk) 12:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

They re-monetised all the old coins, but I doubt they issued any new ones (they were foolish if they did, but that doesn't say much). I expect the coins were used a little in the first couple of weeks, but after that inflation made them worthless again. --Tango (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The coins were used quite often in the first two weeks.(I have even read articles that at the redemonation the most common unit of currency was 50¢ coins.) When the exchange rate fell to Z$34 = 1US$ you only needed 6 kg (compaired with 200,000 kg, now in 1¢ coins) for 1 US$. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 23:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

the $10,000 still have the security thread and both have the watermark; but you're right; they're printed on much lower quality paper than other denominations of the series. Ruby Cored (talk) 12:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Official rate frozen?

Where is the source for the newly-appeared statement that the official rate git frozen at 57 (???) Z$ per US$ on September 23? The RBZ site didn't change its rates since September 19 - and there the rate was 96.43...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 10:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw that rate on xe.com, however the offical rates are from RBZ. It must not have been changed since 23 Sept. $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 12:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is an official announcement that it has been frozen, Wikipedia shouldn't report that it has been frozen. 96.43 is still the rate shown on the RBZ's home page, so I'm going to remove the other rate from the article. Piccadilly (talk) 12:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Cash rates

Should we be reporting the cash rates somewhere? According to [5] 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: [6] ) 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: [7]. 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)

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)

Fundamental unreliability of online stats

I have been a keen follower of this page for the exchange rate progress of the Zim dollar. But I have just returned from a trip to Harare and I have to say that the OMIR data is complete nonsense. It has absolutely no basis in anything remotely related to reaity. The paralle rate stats, while they do seem to be based on reality, isn't so reliable either.

I have the following actual market rates in Harare for USD. 10/27 ZWD 55,000 10/28 ZWD 60,000-65,000 10/29 ZWD 70,000 10/30 ZWD 80,000-85,000

These rates, while they have no online quotable sources, are the actual rates I was quoted and paid. The parallel market rates quoted in the article is also suspect because of its preciseness. Black market rates are very seldom precise down to small digits. My experience is from two visits Zimbabwe, in 2004 and October 2008.

Thus, the current highest value note is ZWD 50,000 which I assume is worth less than USD 0.50 now. People go around holding wads of these notes to go about their daily lives.

I think the exchange rate section needs to be rewritten but as to how that should be done needs to be discussed here.Silentcity (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The rates you are quoting are cash rates. Due to the cash shortage, a physical Z$50,000 note is worth more that Z$50,000 in the bank (by several orders of magnitude, it would appear, which makes a mockery of the whole concept of money). The OMIR isn't an actual exchange rate, it's just the rate implied by certain stock prices, and is very volatile (more so that actual exchange rates, I think), however it does give a pretty good estimate for the rate offered for cheques and, before they were shut down, electronic transfers. --Tango (talk) 18:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The main problem with the "value" of Z$ based on the cash rate in a nutshell : If tomorrow the RBZ decided to print a $1,000,000 dollar note and increase the daily withdrawal limit to that amount, the value of the $50,000 note would immediatly plummet.

This is because is draws its value not from its face value, but solely from the fact that there is a cash shortage. Consider this : Imagine that the US were to demonetize all bills except the $2 bill. Certain goods and services however continue to be sold only agaist (valid) cash. That would lead to the value of the few $2 bills skyrocketing, them trading a multiple time their actual face value. However this would not be a good indication of the value of the US dollar as such. Passportguy (talk) 13:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Since the difference between the actual value and the face value is so enormous, I think it's fair the say the face value is meaningless. Therefore, if a $1m note was printed and the withdrawal limit increased to $1m, the $1m note would probably be worth about the same as the $50k note is now. That means the RBZ can't improve the situation by just printing higher denomination notes, they need to actually deal with the cash shortage. --Tango (talk) 13:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you seen any Zim coin there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.41.204 (talk) 11:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The intersting thing about the OMIR rate and the entire Zimbabwe inflation is that it seems to be the first instance of inflation fueled almost solely by the "printing" of electronic money. Stock prices are ever rising into billions and trillions per share and the money being used to pay for these stocks is coming for somewhere. Since these sums are not covered by cash banknotes issued and not by foreign currency being exchanged, this means that the RBZ is pumping massive amounts of electronic "cash" into the system, fueling inflation. As previous hyperinflations were cause by excessive printing of money, I guess this means that the computer age has now caught up even with inflation.... Passportguy (talk) 12:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not necessarily the RBZ "printing" the electronic money, the money supply is increased whenever anyone lends money to anyone else, in a normal economy, most of that is done by private banks. I have no idea how things work in Zimbabwe! The RBZ has been printing lots of physical cash as well - that's a big part of what has destroyed the exchange rate, they print Zim dollars and then go to the black market and buy up lots of USD. That they can do that and still have a massive cash shortage just shows how bad things are. --Tango (talk) 13:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly. In a normal economy, the money supply is regulated by banks and private lenders as well as the central bank. E.g. currently there is a crisis in the west, because private institutions are holding back on cash. However in terms of supplying money to the system, there is a limit to what banks can do. In a normal exconomy, the money supply is limited. In can increase and decrease (usually only short-term) as foreign currency floods in or out, but the total amount of money is limited. Only the central bank has the authority and ability to influence the money supply but litteraly printing it.

Let's take the price of a Picasso painting - as it has no absolute value and its actual value is based solely on what people can pay for it. Prices start at 1 million. Then the painting is sold on to the next person for 10 million, 100 million and concievably even 1 billion, although the latter is already extremly unlikely. Now if we observe that many paintings as being sold at ever increasing prices, then the question arises where all that money is coming from, as prices continue to rise to 10 billion, 100 billion etc. Since no person or even private institution has 100 billion in their bank account, this means that the central bank is providing the cash without corresponding value. Passportguy (talk) 13:59, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That's simply not true. See money supply. Unless you have full-reserve banking (which I don't think any country does these days), private banks can and do increase the money supply (if there are minimum reserve requirements, then how much they can increase it by is limited, but not all countries have minimums and those that do usually have fairly low minimums). Only a very small portion of the money in circulation in a typical country originated with the central bank. If I deposit £1000 in my bank account and my bank then lends you £900 of that, I can still spend all my money and you can spend the money you've borrowed, so an extra £900 has entered the economy. --Tango (talk) 14:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

No ! If you deposit 1000 Pounds then the bank can take that 1000 Pounds and lend it out to someone else. But if you then withdraw your 1000 Pounds again, the bank has to either call back the loan or get the money from elsewhere, i.e. tap reserves or take up a loan itself. It can't just print an extra 1000 Pounds. If too many people withdraw their money at once, banks can fail, as cash reserves are no longer sufficient. That is what happend with quite a few banks recently. The total amount of money floating around is still the same 1000 Pounds.

If you withdraw it as cash, then what you say is correct. But you can also spend the money by writing a cheque, paying by debit card, making a bank transfer etc. Then the bank, or at any rate the banking system, doesn't need to recall the £900 loan to pay it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.127.21.88 (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Private banks can increase and decrease the money supply by hoarding cash in their vault. Currently many banks are so afraid of people defaulting on loans and/or sudden bank rushes that they have greatly increased their reserves. The higher the reserves are, the less money is available for the economy, and if the reserves grow too large, that is very bad for the economy. But beyond in- and decreasing their reserves, banks cannot increase money supply. Passportguy (talk) 15:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You really need to read money supply. --Tango (talk) 16:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I have, and I think you are confusing money available to the economic cycle with money supply.

But back to more important issues : One more tidbit in support of the OMIR rate, and it not having any relation to the value/PP of the currency. A year ago the OMIR rate was roughly equal to the parallel rate. Since then, taking October 31st data, YOY inflation (HHIZ, based on actual prices for goods & services) has been 3.79 quintillion %, devaluation of the OMIR has been 9.18 quintillion %. Given the fact that we are talking quintillions here, I'd say that that puts the OMIR pretty much where it should be accounting for inflation. Passportguy (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

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)

Well; it's broken today at Thurs October 30; we were both off by one day; it's a tie! Rubycored (talk) 16:35, 30 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)

218 Quadrillion % YOY inflation today... Rubycored (talk) 12:27, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

No, 218 Quadrillion % YOY devaluation of the currency against the USD. That's not the same thing. See my comments further down the page on the subject. --Tango (talk) 15:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Whoops; i should've said "devaluation" but the word "inflation" came out of the kbord..., eitherway; the afternoon devaluation reached 3/4 quintillion% Rubycored (talk) 12:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Today the OMIR has its highest number in any current Zimbabwean currency, with the previous record being roughly 690 billion second dollars on July 22. That means a more than ten-billionfold devaluation within 3 months!--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 16:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

time for a quintillion!

Today the OMIR's devaluation reached 3 quintillion% Rubycored (talk) 16:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sexillion !

Well now it's 8.87 sextillion%, and its been less than 2 weeks! $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Another milestone, Nov. 6

Today the OMIR showed a pullback in the ZWD/USD rate (i. e. a gain in the value of the ZWD) to nearly double what it was two days ago -- not since September 11-16 has the OMIR overshot and then pulled back this much. Heian-794 (talk) 13:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well that lasted a long time, didn't it? Today has to be one of the biggest drops ever (*the* biggest in absolute terms, I'd think). --Tango (talk) 12:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Today it went to 22.4 Quadrillion Z3$ (or 224 octillion Z1$), a drop of 3278 %. That is a new record for a one day fall by far. Passportguy (talk) 11:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess that's caused by the failure of yesterday's summit. The increased withdrawal limits probably have an associated increased money supply, which will also be harming the exchange rate (especially the cash rate). --Tango (talk) 12:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Plus Gono was reported as saying on the weekend that he would continue to print money. Not something that it going to help money stability. Passportguy (talk) 12:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

True, although he's being saying that repeatedly for months, so I doubt anyone thought otherwise. --Tango (talk) 13:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

you forgot October 1st~3rd :P Rubycored (talk) 20:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Huh, a devaluation of more than 3000% within a day is remarkable, but what is even more remarkable is that the major part of this devaluation happened in those couple of hours between the AM and the PM rate! It were like 1233% within 2 hours....--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 13:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

TRIPLE Milestone?

Well; as you all know, today Zim3$ did 3x milestone of going over 1 quadrillion per US$, devalue over 1000% in a day and shooting over 1 sextillion% yoy devaluation.... Looks like they can build a milecastle by now! Rubycored (talk) 14:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Quadruple - CATO's inflation index says monthly inflation is now over a billion percent (5.5 billion, in fact!). --Tango (talk) 14:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually 5; if you would include the CATO index being over 1 sextillion ! (though I really wonder how that works; is it saying what used to be $1 at October 8th is now $55 million at November 8th?? Or am I missing something?) Rubycored (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The index is the price of a set basket of goods and services (I've no idea what's in the CATO basket). --Tango (talk) 16:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know what is in the Cato basket and compare it to what is in the official basket (what is there anyway?). By the way, what is the starting point for the price index on the official RBZ site? Did it start with 100 or with 1000? Which day did it start on (or is the day variable)?--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 22:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It started at 1 on 5 Jan 07 (see http://cato.org/zimbabwe). --Tango (talk) 22:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean the Cato index. I meant the CPI on the RBZ site. When and with which figure did it start?--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:02, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. According to [8], it's defined to be 100 in 2001. They have figures going back further than that, though, so they must have re-based it in 2001 (or soon after). I don't know what the base was before that. --Tango (talk) 15:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Have just stumbled upon this and looking at how the CATO index is worked out, the index has gone up 55 million-fold in the last four weeks which annualised (ie raising to the power of 13) gives a rate of 4.88*10¹⁰⁰ - haven't found anything on google yet about googol hyperinflation rates. That corresponds to 334 doublings in a year, so not yet at the 15 hour doubling Hungary saw. Tonybourtonville (talk) 09:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Try annualising the last week's inflation (you'll have to divide the last two index figures yourself), you'll get something closer to the current value. --Tango (talk) 11:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

And the OMIR actually dropped a little, and is now less than 1/1000 of the parallel rate, which itself is ludicrously higher than the official rate. Have the new bills reached the streets yet? People must be filling up wheelbarrows by now if they're still using $20k and $50k bills. Heian-794 (talk) 09:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

...and now, for something strange

Today the OMIR site stated "Calculating the Year on Year percentage change has broken our database!" Does this mean that Zim$ has yet broken another level that we have never thought of? Rubycored (talk) 13:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Whoops; looks like they fixed it; should've taken a screenshot of the page though! Rubycored (talk) 13:44, 24 November 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. [9], 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)

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: [10] ); 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 [11]. 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 ([12]). 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 [13] 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 [14] 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)

You may find it convenient to display these rates in a separate article as it may make the article too long to read in future. Just my two cents. --Marianian (talk) 20:32, 17 November 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 ([15]) 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! [16] 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 [17]. 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 [18]; 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)

Responding to my own post here, but this link will take you to some great photos, including the billion-dollar dinner tab:

http://humorland.wordmess.net/20081025/what-the-real-crisis-is-like/ Heian-794 (talk) 04:25, 29 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)

Zimbabwe $ coin

Are there still coins used in Zimbabwe? I would think they would have to be really big to fit all the zeros or has everyone melted all of them for the metal? 65.167.146.130 (talk) 18:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

There are coins, but they're in such small denominations that I'm sure no-one uses them. I think the largest coin is $25 which is worth about 0.02 US cents, really not worth using. --Tango (talk) 19:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

During the last revaluation, the coins from the preceding dollar were given their original values again despite the horrific hyperinflation that had made all the bills worthless. My guess is that people are hoarding their old coins with the hope that a fourth Z$ will come along and make all those coins worth something again. Heian-794 (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the coins maintain their face value or at least maintain the value of the metal,during all Z1 to Z3 period.There was example in China during the civil war period(1945-1949).

No, this was a specific action by the government to remonetise the existing coins (God knows why!), it wasn't just that they had inherent value. It's possible people are hoarding them in case of another revaluation, alternatively they may just be ignoring them because they are worthless. --Tango (talk) 13:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

In the case of China,the silver coin of 1 dollar face value,was stay steady from 1890's to 1949.But the Zim coin is not silver.

Latest inflation figures

If anyone is interested, the latest inflation figures at http://cato.org/zimbabwe correspond to an average doubling time last week of just under 23 hours. It's also worth noting that last week's index figure has been revised upwards, so the previous measure was an underestimate. That suggests the latest figures may be revised upwards in time too. Zimbabwe is rapidly approaching the worst hyperinflation in history (which I believe was Hungary with prices doubling every 15 hours) - that's if you measure by peak rate, if you consider total increase in prices since the start, I think Zimbabwe has been in the lead for a while now since it's been going on so long. --Tango (talk) 14:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to make sense of the HHIZ statistics for a while now. The way I understand it, the "Annual Inflation Rate" is a YOY figure (i.e. Oct 31, 2007 - Oct 21, 2008), while the "Monthly Inflation Rate" is MOM, i.e. Sep 30 - Oct 31. If that is true, then current monthly inflation (493 million %), extrapolated to a yearly figure puts annualized inflation at

(    493,000,000 )^ 12


(1 + ------------)      - 1 = 2.06 x 10^82 %

(       100      )

I hope I got the zeros right.... Passportguy (talk) 15:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Passportguy, that looks like a good estimate -- I tried to clean up your formatting a little! Another even rougher one would be to take the annualized inflation rate based on an extrapolation from the roughly 100% day-on-day rate, which would be 2^365, or (thanks, Google!) 7.51533626 × 10^109 -- add two zeroes to put it in percentage format. That's more than a googol; insane. Heian-794 (talk) 16:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I get 5x10⁸²% doing the same calculation (well, I ignored the + and - 1 bits since they make no difference on that level of precision)... However, you can do better than that by calculating your own week-on-week inflation and annualising that. For that, I get "Math Error"! Let me try a better calculator! 5x10¹¹⁸%! --Tango (talk) 16:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

One more addition -- it looks like the HHIZ measures the index once a week and then defines a "month" as four weeks. (See the equations inolving HHIZ(t) and HHIZ(t-4) in the notes below the table on their site.) Since months other than February are 4 2/7 or 4 3/7 weeks long, the actual monthly inflation is a bit higher than what they publish. Their annual figures should be good, though. Heian-794 (talk) 16:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Worst inflation ever

In terms of total inflationary effect :
The current OMIR rate is 35 trillion Z3$ to 1 US$, or 350 septillion Z1$ to 1 US$.
To get a value of a future Z4$ dollar of 50:1, where it was in 2000, you would currently have to revalue 700 million Z3$ to 1 or 7 x 10^24 Z1$.

Yugoslavia 1990-1994 had an effect of :
10 (R92) * 1,000,000 (R93) * 1,000,000,000 (R94a) * 12,000,000 (R94b) = 1.2 x 10^23
As 1 US$ was worth 12 Dinar in 1990 and only roughly 1.5 Dinar in 1995, the over all effect is slightly lower at 1.5 x 10^22 = PP of 1 1990-Dinar. If you go back to the mid 1980s as your starting point, you get those values increased by around the factor 10,000 (i.e. 1.5 x 10^26)

You miss two redenominations: in 1990 and in 1994. Additionally R94b, which is acccureately is R94c was depend on DM rate (10,000,000-13,000,000). Really it looked like that:

100,000(R90) * 10 (R92) * 1,000,000 (R93) * 1,000,000,000 (R94a) * 10,000,000 (R94b) = 1 x 10^27 * 10-13,000,000 (R94c)

Yugoslavian 10^27 was real inflation can be seen on notes. OMIR is artifitial - new Z3$ 1M note will be only 10^19 Z1$. 195.35.80.58 (talk) 07:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I purposefully did not include the 1990 revaluation, as it is based on the inflation of 30 years and not on the hyperinflation of the period that followed. Note that inflation and revaluation are not the same thing. The only reason I did the above calculations based on exchange rates is that we don't have reliable figures for the Z$ inflation (yet), and I also do not have immediate access to detailed inflation data for all of these countries. However Zimbabwe inflation is very real, regardless of what notes are issued. Inflation is based on prices, not on banknotes !

As far as I can see, there were only 2 revaluations in 1994 : Yugoslav_dinar#History lists the following :

July 1, 1992 10 YUN > 1 YUR

October 1, 1993 1,000,000 YUR : 1 YUO

January 1, 1994 1,000,000,000 YUO : 1 YUG

January 24, 1994 12,000,000 YUG = 1 YUM = 1 DEM

I.e. 10 (R92) * 1,000,000 (R93) * 1,000,000,000 (R94a) * 12,000,000 (R94b) = 1.2 x 10^23. Adjust that for value differences and you get 1.5 x 10^22. As I said above, if you do want to include the 1990 revaluation, you get 1.5 x 10^26. But as the devaluation of the first Dinar happend over a long period of time, I wouldn't include it in the hyperinflation effect. Passportguy (talk) 11:10, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hungary 1945/46 ended up changing 4 x 10^29 pengö for one forint. The value for the US$ was set at 12 forint, so talking into effect that pre WW II rates were ~ 3 pengös for 1 Dollar, the overall effect was 1.6 x 10^30, making it the worst hyperinflation ever.

For Zimbabwe to break that record, it we will need to reach a Z3$ rate of roughly 7 quintillion. If current inflation persists (rates roughly tripling every day), we will reach that in about 2 weeks.

Btw : all of the above would also have to be slightly adjusted for PP differences, but they are likely roughly correct. Passportguy (talk) 17:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

"Inflation is based on prices, not on banknotes!". I second that. Hungary 1946 is a perfect example. The highest valued banknote was 10^20 pengö (there was also a 10^21 pengö note but it never became legal tender). The rate was in the range 10^29, and so were the prices (the notes were probably not used in the last couple weeks, replaced by adopengös (where the highest note was 10^7, corresponding to 2*10^28 pengö). By the way, wasn't it 4*10^29 pengö for one forint?--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 12:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

True. It was 4x10^29. I'll correct that above Passportguy (talk) 12:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Well; given today's rate is now 22 quadrillion - they have surely broke the yugo's record by now! And probably Hungary's 24-hour devaluation too... Rubycored (talk) 14:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

New banknotes to be issued

The RBZ has announced that $100,000; $500,000; and $1,000,000 notes will be issued this week. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/11/03/zimbabwe.money/index.html. Passportguy (talk) 19:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The 1,000,000 note will be about 1,300 USD on official rate.WOW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.137.151.250 (talk) 02:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

A tacit admission that the official rate is nonsense! Heian-794 (talk) 06:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Has any seen pictures of the new notes?Jd.mackiewicz (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep; the new photos just came up on FleaBay today; though I don't have any at hand atm.

Right now the $100k- and $500k notes are identical in security qualities as to the $20,000 and $50,000; whereas the $1M is printed on the old $1000 stock (thus the windows security thread and watermark) although it is highly ironic that both 100,000 and 1,000,000 are BLUE (wouldn't be surprised if people get them mixed up in the markets!) and the 1/2 million is green-brown-ish Rubycored (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It is worth noting that information about banknotes should be put in the talk section of the Banknotes of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe article, which specializes on this matter. BTW, the ZB$100,000 note is purple in some way. Cheers, --Marianian (talk) 20:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It's purple? Well; that figures (yes; i'm partially colour-blind) Rubycored (talk) 21:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Confused about the OMIR for November 5

I just checked the OMIR site and it has 225,497,447,368,896 as the current value, with 216,162,327,532,185 as the previous value. Just a few hours ago the same site showed 267,539,344,335,978, but now there's no trace of that. Could it be a misprint, or was that the morning rate, with the evening rate being compared to the previous day's figure? I'm going to put the $225T figure into the article as "11/5 PM"; someone please fix this if it's wrong. I'm guesing that the OMIR just overshot a bit before falling back. Heian-794 (talk) 11:54, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that was probably the AM value and has been replaced by the PM value, they always compare to the PM value the day before, I think. --Tango (talk) 14:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Tango. I think this is one of the rare instances of the Z$ actually re-gaining value. It fell to 274 in the morning and recovered some of those losses in the afternoon to end up at 225. Passportguy (talk) 00:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It does that quite often (well, it did, recently it's been falling so fast that on a good day it usually just falls slower!) - after a particularly large drop it goes back up again. I think it's because the stock prices are very volatile and frequently overshoot the realistic value and need correcting. --Tango (talk) 01:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation; the same thing happened today, with the ZWD moving all the way back up to 134,838,399,549,100. Now that I know that the OMIR is compared to the previous day's value, and not the value last time they calculated it, it's easier to understand. Heian-794 (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Price Doubling?

If I undersand Doubling Time corectly. The annual inflation rate of 215,000,000,000,000,000,000% = price doubling every 5.9976 Days. I used this math formula :$T_{d}={\frac {\log(2)}{\log(1+{\frac {r}{100}})}}$Jd.mackiewicz (talk) 19:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that formula is that it assumes the rate of inflation is constant - which it isn't. (The calculation is right though)

given that today alone's devaluation is 3,278%, and assuming constant devaluation over the hour, it gives me that price doubling (or value halving) every 4.76(!) hours, someone wanna check that for me? Rubycored (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This is true CATO's inflation rate is a couple weeks old. I don't the OMIR rate is what they are seeing in price changes on the street (yet!). But then again I don't have access to street prices in Zimbabwe. My attempt is for readers to comprehend 215 Quintillion per cent per year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jd.mackiewicz (talk • contribs) 20:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well that's true, the difference in the street rate is merely due to the chronic cash shortage there. According to SWRadioAfrica the rate is $1 = Z3$200,000, which means the new Z3$1M is $5 on the streets. But if you're transferring through banks you'll need a shipment of $1 millions!!

Having said that; the figure does look right; but they should also note that doubling time is getting shorter and shorter as we speak! Rubycored (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Talking about the doubling rate implied by the annual inflation is pretty meaningless - the annual inflation is far lower than the current instantaneous inflation, since inflation is rapidly rising. The actual current doubling rate is something measured in hours (exactly what, I don't know, since CATO only gives weekly figures and the latest is a few days out of date already). The six days figure is an average over the last year (for an appropriate average, geometric mean possibly?), the number that matters is how quickly prices are doubling right now. --Tango (talk) 21:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, today CATO revised their inflation figure to half a sextillion percent... looks like the Doubling time is shorter than we all originally thought!! Rubycored (talk) 15:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

By my calculation (please check me!) that puts the doubling time over the week 31/10 to 7/11 at 22hrs 14mins. I think we can safely assume it's less than that now, so if it hasn't reached the 15 hour record yet, it will very soon. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next figures (which should be released around the beginning of next week) show weekly inflation corresponding to a doubling time under 15 hours. Although, to be fair to Hungary (they have a dubious honour, but it's an honour nonetheless!) the 15 hour figure comes from a monthly rate, so they may have gone over that over shorter time periods. We should probably wait until the monthly rate exceeds Hungary's before changing the lede to describe this as the worst hyperinflation ever. --Tango (talk) 15:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Which numbers did you use for your 22 hour 14min number. I think using CATO's new numbers from the Monthly Inflation rate of 13.2 Billion % per month that gives us a doubling time of 24.9 hours. (Assuming a 4 week month) Should we start posting the monthly inflation rate instead of the yearly inflation rate? 163.11.229.135 (talk) 16:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I did it over just the last week. I divided the latest index figure by the previous one to get a weekly rate and used that. --Tango (talk) 16:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The way I understand the formula : The price index increased from 22.6 quintillion to 4.26 hexillion, i.e. by ~ 18,850 % in the week from Oct 31 to Nov 7. Thus :

$T_{d}={\frac {\log(2)}{\log(1+{\frac {18850}{100}})}}$

$T_{d}={\frac {0.30103}{\log(1+{188.50})}}$

$T_{d}={\frac {0.30103}{2.27761}}$

$T_{d}=0.13217weeks$ = 0.92518 days = 22.2 hours
Passportguy (talk) 19:08, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Which is 22 hours and 14 minutes, yes. --Tango (talk) 19:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

*nods, checking*. Agreed with taking doubling rate over a month, say, but probably best to add a rider that that's not comparing like-with-like; i.e. that the inflation rate for /cash/ in Zimbabwe at present is nothing like as high as that for electronic Zim$ and it is the former which the 1946 Hungarian scenario is, of course, a comparison.

Thanks; and for keeping up the tracking. Good work. :)

(aside: it should be possible to backfill cash rates a bit more, retrospectively, from the best available & most internally & externally consistent sources, but those are well archived on-line on zimbabwesituation so that's no "rush" unlike the previous daily updates from siyabonga and SWradioafrica. I've also snagged the OMIR spreadsheet in order to backfill that as/when, since that's patchy for earlier dates). Harami2000 (talk) 02:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

It a good point - a lot of things are priced different if you're paying in cash than if you're paying by cheque. I wonder which prices CATO uses for its index... --Tango (talk) 16:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• nods* CATO's figure is not based on the "real money" available to the population at large as is obvious from the weekly inflation rate figures they're quoting (not that Zw$ banknotes are of much greater use owing to the maximum rate of withdrawal and availability of goods). The Financial Gazette article "Hold on to your forex, don't 'burn' it" on http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/nov16_2008.html is insightful in this context. Regards, David. Harami2000 (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is it obvious? Do you have some source for cash inflation rates that are different from the ones CATO is reporting? --Tango (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, no recent sources for cash inflation that I've seen, possibly for the old reason that there are inadequate goods for a "basket" calculation, at a guess?

Reasonably obvious, IMHO. Take for example the 13.2 million % stated by CATO for the month to 7th November 2008.

Given that a loaf of bread is still quoted as being cash-Zw$400,000 on a news report for the 12th November ( http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/nov13a_2008.html ) which is broadly in line with various recent "two loaves of bread for month's salary" quotes and cannot have been that much more on the 7th given the old daily withdrawal limits, if that 13.2 million % were for cash, the price for a loaf would have had to have been somewhere around cash-Zw$3 as of 7th October. Looking back to http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/oct9b_2008.html (yeah, it's the Zim Herald, but that should tally reasonably with that date I'm looking for), the figure quoted for a loaf of bread there is Zw$7,000-10,000. i.e. indicative of an inflation rate which *is* extremely high on a monthly basis, but still nowhere near to the monthly CATO inflation figure which is, in turn, (apparently) lagging somewhat behind an extrapolation from the OMIR figures.

I trust that makes sense, anyhow, and can be very confusing given all those zeros. :/ Cheers, d. Harami2000 (talk) 03:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of anything better, I guess the price of bread will have to do. There are major food shortages, though, which means the price of bread isn't just increasing because of inflation (although that actually strengthens your point in this case). --Tango (talk) 11:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

This week's inflation's now 89.7 Sextillion %; if we use the week of 7~14 November we get Doubling Time of 22hrs 28 minutes. Quite interesting as it's almost same as last week's figure! Rubycored (talk) 14:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that is interesting - weekly inflation has been pretty constant for the past 3 weeks, if this continues, monthly inflation will level out after next week too, at a rate of about 131 billion percent. That's a doubling rate of 22 hours 11 minutes. Maybe it won't overtake Hungary so soon after all? (Of course, this is probably just a short term blip and it will continue skyrocketing against next week!) --Tango (talk) 14:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

New rate type

http://swradioafrica.com/ published a "commercial rate" on its website today, which is roughly equivalent to yesterday's OMIR rate, at 28.4 quadrillion. Howver since it isn't exactly the same, they must have a different source. But it seems that cheques are now being traded at ~ the OMIR rate. Passportguy (talk) 09:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe the OMIR is actually calculated for GBP and then converted to USD, so perhaps they just converted at a different time and there was some fluctuation in GBP:USD (or "cable" as it's known)? I'm not sure how volatile cable was yesterday, but it could have been enough to account for the difference. --Tango (talk) 15:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, they could have chosen a different time to compare the Old Mutual stock prices, or perhaps one compares them by taking the price on each exchange at a given time and the other compares the Zim closing price to the London closing price (I believe the markets close an hour or two apart). There are various possible sources of small discrepancies, especially in something so volatile as the OMIR. --Tango (talk) 16:02, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

And now they have 4 or 5 different rates... which one shall we use? The highest one? Rubycored (talk) 21:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The real one :-) For me it is cash rate from Harare streets, now about 600,000 Z3$:1 USD. OMIR nowadays is worth less than official RBZ rate. 83.14.232.140 (talk) 21:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

All of the rates are real, they just measure different things (the OMIR is an estimate of the electronic rate, probably for large transactions, although why it differs from the rate reported by swradioafrica by a factor of 10 at the moment, I don't know - I guess it's a consequence of things moving so quickly, slight discrepancies can end up massively exaggerated). The Zim$ has almost always been worth less by the OMIR than the official rate, what are you talking about? --Tango (talk) 22:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Rates vary with the amount of money exchanged. The more you exchange, the better the rate. Also : we have already discussed these cash rates at length and concluded that the value of cash Z$ has nothing to do with the value of the currency, rather the (much !) value of the banknotes is based on the fact that cash is rationed and people that absolutely need banknotes will pay many times its value to get it.

Here is how it works :

If I have 1 US $ I can do two things.

1) I buy a share of a company worth roughly 1$, trading both on a western and on the Harare SE. I then sell that share in Harare, get the OMIR rate and now have roughly 180 quintillion Z$ in my Harare bank account.
or
2) I take my cash dollar, go on the street black market and get roughly 500,000 Z$.

Now : In shops (in the very few that still sell anything for Z$) I can pay either cash or cheque. If I pay by cheque there will be a surcharge, as by the time the cheque clears, the Z$ will be worth considerably less. However that surcharge will be nowhere near the 36 quadrillion percent I am making by using cheques.
Therefore : If I have foreign currency I will either use that to pay for goods (what most people do) or use cheques. I will only use cash if I absolutely have to, e.g. if the bus driver will not accept cheques.
Cash in Zimbabwe today is more or less a rationing coupon. Certain goods and services are only provided for cash. Because everyone can only get minute amounts of cash per day, that allows to government to severly limit the access to these goods by introducing cash withdrawal limits. However all of this has no relation to either inflation rates or the value of the currency. Passportguy (talk) 22:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

My interpretation of the news articles is that the surcharge for cheques (in the very few places that accept them, which is even fewer than accept Zim$ cash) includes the fact that money in the bank is worth less than money in your hand, so there is no significant advantage in using them (other than the simple fact that it's the only way to access most of your money). From what I can tell, the best course of action is to just buy USD with any cash you can get your hands on and just use that. Also, I'm not sure if anyone actually uses the stock markets to change currency, there are fees and there's also the risk of the stock price changing (for real, not just because of exchange rates) in the time it takes. I think the usual way to change money without cash is to write a cheque to the currency traders on the street. --Tango (talk) 11:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I suppose I have an 180*10^15 cheque. What can I do with it when newspaper cost about Z3$ 400,000? Does anyone sell me 5*10^11 examples of the same newspaper or bottle of beer or realizing it is simply impossible? I think we should stop quoting OMIR, because it is now only speculating derivate rate. 83.14.232.140 (talk) 18:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

If you have cash, a newspaper costs Z$400,000, if you're paying by cheque (assuming they'll let you) it will cost orders of magnitude more. The OMIR is a real rate (well, as estimate of, at least), it just isn't the cash rate. I know it's very weird having the value of cash and the value of money in the bank being completely unrelated, but that's just how it is in Zimbabwe. --Tango (talk) 18:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear anon user. The OMIR rate is not a derivate, it is a calculated average of stock prices with dual listing in both Harare and in JNB or London. This is how ist works. Assume there are 3 companies : A-company, B-company and C-company. All three are listed both in London and Harare. Today's average stock prices were :

A-company : 1 GBP (London) / 20 quadrillion (Harare)

B-company : 2 GBP (London) / 35 quadrillion (Harare)

C-company : 3 GBP (London) / 100 quadrillion (Harare)

The OMIR rate is thus [(20/1) + (35/2) + (100/3)] / 3 = 23.6 quadrillion. It is based on actual prices paid for stocks on any given day. Thus people actually do have quintillions and sextillions in their bank account with which they buy stocks.

Private people naturally can't use the stock exchange to exchange small amounts of money, as the bank charges would be too high. However just like the mid-market rates for other currencies quoted by newspapers (which also are not available to private citizens) the OMIR rate gives a good indication of what the Z$ is worth as a currency.

As Tango said, the value of banknotes has been much more stable and is now much higher than the value of the currency as such - but that has nothing to do with the value of the Z$ but rather with the scarcity of banknotes. Passportguy (talk) 19:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think the OMIR comes from just one stock price, Old Mutual, hence the name. There are similar rates that average different stock prices, but they aren't as well publicised. --Tango (talk) 19:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I think we should mention something somehow about the fact that the CASH Rate and the ELECTRONIC (OMIR) rates of Zimbabwe Dollars are, by now, completely different rates altogether... Rubycored (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

4th Dollar?

Any news about another reevaluation? I believe it would be about time they did the real thing there.--217.91.33.230 (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the real thing"? Revaluing the currency won't stop the hyperinflation, it just makes things more convenient for a few weeks. They need to actually stop the causes of hyperinflation (ie. stop indiscriminately printing money, increasing exports would probably help too) before they will get anywhere, there's very little point revaluing the currency again until they've done that. --Tango (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

would be interesting if they decide to do it before the end of this year! Rubycored (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Real rate of Z3$ is now about 200,000 - 300,000Z3$:1 USD. In case there is no real politic in Zimbabwe they can cotinue Z3$ until notes worth ie. Z3$ 1 Trillion. "Stock" Z3$ with their OMIR rate become kind a derivative since last 3 months and has nothing common with real Z3$. 83.14.232.140 (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

The real rate for cash is as you describe. The OMIR does seem to be a good estimate for the rate used for cheques. --Tango (talk) 20:29, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

With the real thing I meant when will they finally manage to get out of this chaos. It can't go on for ever, can it? They should really try to stabilize their currency or the Zimbabwean people won't stop suffering. --217.91.33.230 (talk) 11:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

They need political stability before they'll ever get economic stability. --Tango (talk) 12:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Political stability is the only option because in this era of fiat money (money that has value solely because the government says it does), there's not obligation to back a new currency with something tangible -- gold, silver, land, oil, etc. If money is going to be backed only by government promises, then a promise from the government of Zimbabwe has to be worth something. I don't see such a state coming about while Mugabe is still active. Heian-794 (talk) 14:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

As far as the possible 4th dollar is concerned, I am noting that there may be problems to how the dollar symbol should be addressed as. You appear to start using Z3$ fro the third dollar, while in the Banknotes of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe article, we use Z$, ZN$, and ZB$. Any thoughts about cross-article notation standards? --Marianian (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Z3$ is just an unofficial shorthand we use on this talk page to avoid confusion. The official symbol is still $ or Z$ and that should be used in any article. Passportguy (talk) 23:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Quadrillion Confusion

Wikipedia defines Quadrillion as 10 to power 15 or 10 to power 24 - it is not clear which is being used in table for inflation rate

86.136.194.200 (talk) 20:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)Richard Buxton 14 Nov 200886.136.194.200 (talk) 20:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It's short scale, so 10¹⁵. Long scale is very rarely used these days, at least in English. --Tango (talk) 21:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Collapsible tables

I changed the format for the tables to autocollapse, to make the article more readable. I also included an extra table to show the current data without the main tables having to be expanded. Somehow I couldn't get the Z1$ table to collapse though - I'm not quite sure why. Maybe someone with more knowledge on collapible table that I can fix that. Passportguy (talk) 13:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Great job; I'm not much of a Wiki markup expert and wouldn't have been able to figure out how to do that. Anyone interested in (as the OMIR swings wildly upward and downwards at times) perhaps adding an entry for the all-time low point, for reference? (E. g., today the ZWD is at 400 quadrillion to the USD, but the record is 660 quadrillion.) Heian-794 (talk) 13:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the tables got messed up; I don't see any numbers for the two near the end of the article. --142.90.99.60 (talk) 23:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

egg picture

The picture of the egg for the money is great but I just saw this page http://www.nancarrow-webdesk.com/warehouse/storage2/2008-w29/img.272786.html which suggests its a copyrighted image? Can any one clarify? --Curuxz (talk) 10:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

OMIR shot up 97%!!

Well this is peculiar... today OMIR registered an overall rise of whopping 97(!)% to Z3$12.5 trillion... Could this be an indication that the Zim$ is finally stabilising? Rubycored (talk) 13:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is some underlying reason for it (I haven't gone over the latest news, so I don't know) then it's probably just a random fluctuation, although an enormous one. (Incidentally, the OMIR has gone *down* by 97%, in terms of Z$ per US$, which corresponds to the Z$ rising in value by over 3000% - the website we get the OMIR figures from has all the signs wrong on their table [it's been bugging me for months]. A rise of 97% would mean just short of doubling, which is a far less drastic movement than what actually happened.) --Tango (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It might be because of this note on the OMIR page - "The ZSE is to switch to a single callover from 19 November 2008 to counter allegations of market manipulation by some brokers, ZSE chief executive Emmanuel Munyukwi said. He said it had come to the attention of the exchange that some brokers had been buying shares at first Callover and offloading them at a much higher price in the Final Callover. "We took the decision at the ZSE Committee meeting yesterday, before we learnt of the decision by the RBZ." Munyukwi said he had also been informed that a large number of multi-quad,quin and sextillion cheques had bounced. He added the ZSE would continue to monitor the situation and switch back to two callovers should the situation normalise. "

Anyone know what a "callover" is? CecilPL (talk) 17:08, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Amazing; the USD lost 97% of its "value" against the Z3$! Given the ludicrous difference between the cash rate and the OMIR, I wouldn't be surprised to see another zero or two come off the OMIR like this. Speculators somewhere are making piles of money... Heian-794 (talk) 16:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I added the quote from ZimbabweanEquities to the article; Old Mutual hasn't traded since 20 November, so the OMIR is now officially useles.s 137.112.115.164 (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

All is I've told :-) OMIR became a derivate, not a currency rate and now it collapsed - nobody wants to realize sextilion-valued cheques because of their very pathetic common with reality. I think there is the same probablity to buy something for that cheque than a "Monopoly" note. 83.14.232.140 (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion with ups and downs; i meant the value of Z3$ shot up 97% to the US$; taking the figure from the %change tab on the OMIR page Rubycored (talk) 17:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't take it from the OMIR page, it's wrong (they have everything backwards). The value of the USD dropped 97% with respect to the Z$, the Z$ shot up over 3000% (=100%*1/(1-97/100))with respect to the USD. --Tango (talk) 17:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if it has anything to do with this http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/nov21_2008.html#Z13 128.253.197.150 (talk) 22:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Z$ Stabilisation?

The Z3rd$ has remained stable for 4 days now. Could it have finally reached stabalisation??? $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 21:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

If it remains stable on Thursday and Friday, it may be the most stable week since the last days of the first dollar... By the way this stability shows that the OMIR is not as volatile as some people say here. I think, when it goes up and down in times of extrme instability, it's what actually happens to the currency. Inflation/devaluation is not a "perpetual fall" as it is often described--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 21:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC).

It certainly used to be volatile. It doesn't matter what the cause is, if it goes up and down wildly, it's volatile, that's just what the word means. I think what this shows is that the OMIR was being manipulated and is now back under control (or, the authorities are manipulating it now to keep it under control, although I don't they have the resources for that). Remember, this is just the electronic rate, the cash rate is completely independent these days. It seems that is still increasing, although we don't have regular numbers for that. Hyperinflation does generally result in a constant increase in prices - it's a spiralling effect, so once people get used to things increasing they generally keep doing so until something happens to stop it (whatever started it going away isn't enough). --Tango (talk) 22:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Old Mutual has not been trading at all in Zimbabwe :). The slight fluctuations you see on the OMIR website are partly because the calculation is done from GBP to ZWD (since it's trading in London), and then converted to USD. So all you are seeing is Thursday's price, with the daily changes due to changes in the USD/GBP rate, as well as changes in the price of the company in London (and that price is obviously not very volatile). --98.14.105.105 (talk) 03:46, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source for the OMIR no longer being traded? If so, we should add it as a reference and stop adding these fluctuations to the article. TiffaF (talk) 07:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

From ZimbabweanEquities.com:"From 21 November 2008 Old Mutual plc has not traded on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE). Old Mutual plc last traded on the ZSE on 20 November 2008 at ZWD10 quadrillion per share. As at today, 25 November 2008, Old Mutual plc is offered at ZWD500 trillion per share but has not traded. Should the Old Mutual plc share trade at the current bid price, the OMIR statistics would be as follows:

Current OMIR at a price of 500 trillion = 649,374,262,960,211

Previous OMIR at the previous offer price of 500 trillion = 702,088,432,250,572

The haitus between the ZSE and the broking community, the collapse of the banking sector, the settlement infrastructure within it and illiquidity of the Old Mutual plc share on the ZSE probably renders the OMIR meaningless for the basis of business decision making. However we will continue to monitor the situation and should the situation return to normal we will resume our free daily email service."--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 08:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Well spotted! I've updated the article accordingly. --Tango (talk) 11:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Clarafication: The Zimbabwe dollar hasn't stabilized in any way, the statistical tickers have gone haywire following the recent events. Either way more notes with more zeros will have to be issued if they want to catch up with the spiralling rate. --Marianian (talk) 19:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have a rough ETA on the next major banknote issue? Assuming that inflation keeps rolling on as it has in Zimbabwe in the cash market, that is. --24.80.126.85 (talk) 21:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Your guess is as good as ours. At the moment the problem isn't so much that the bank notes are in such small denominations compared to prices, but rather the withdrawal limits are so small. Increasing withdrawal limits has coincided with releasing new notes the last few times, so we can expect that to happen again. The value of the money you can withdraw without special permission is already pretty much meaningless, but know Mugabe and Gono, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll increase the limits any time soon. --Tango (talk) 12:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)