Exciting investment news from Zimbabwe: Every now-nearly-worthless 100-trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill might, just might, soon be worth more than 100 trillion US dollars. Eyewitness News reports:
[President Robert ] Mugabe urged people who still have worthless Zimbabwe dollars not to tear them up, as they will be compensated.
Central Bank chief Gideon Gono told Mugabe many people still have Zimbabwe dollars in their homes. He said if elected into power next week, he will work out how to compensate people. Zimbabwe dumped its currency in 2009 and switched to the Rand and United States (US) dollar.
Mugabe says his party, Zanu-PF, plans to reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar at some stage. If backed by gold, the local unit could be worth more than the US dollar, Mugabe said.
Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, the man responsible for creating those bank notes, was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in mathematics in 2009 for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
NOTE (not about the bank notes): Gideo Gono’s web site seems to be under new ownership.