Techotic

Everyone will be a billionaire in Zimbabwe this coming Monday, when the country’s troubled bank introduces $100 billion bills to the public. The bills were on the foreign currency dealers market Saturday. Due to ultra high inflation, the $100 billion bills aren’t enough to buy a loaf of bread. They can buy only four oranges. The new banknote is equal to just one U.S. dollar.

Once-prosperous Zimbabwe has seen an unprecedented economic meltdown since it gained independence in 1980, with the official inflation rate now at 2.2 million percent.

Zimbabwe started issuing large bank notes in December, starting with denominations of $250,000.

In January, the government issued bills in denominations of $1 million, $5 million, and $10 million — and in May, it issued bills from $25 million and $50 million up to $25 billion and $50 billion.

The new bills are actually bearer checks and have an expiration date of December 31. Zimbabwe has not had formal currency since the introduction of bearer checks as a temporary measure in 2003.

[via cnn]