Just How Much is 500 Million Dollars?

Zimbabwe, which has an 165,000% inflation rate, is trying to ensure that their citizens do not need to carry tons of money while going out to buy their stuff.

When I was in Sudan, I have to carry a bulk of of their 1,000 Sudanese Dinar wherever I go so that I would have enough to pay for stuff that I wanted. A simple meal at a restaurant would cost me easily 3,000 Sudanese Dinar (equivalent to US$15). At this point of time, Sudan has made their currency becoming smaller denomination where 100 Sudanese Dinar is equivalent to 1 Sudanese Pound, which is still at the same exchange rate of 2 Sudanese Pound = US$1.00. Sudan is not linked to any international currency exchange rate and they change their denomination as they like.

Wherelse in Zimbabwe, the value of their money has dropped even further. When I blogged about the new issuance of the 10,000,000 (Ten Million) Zimbabwe Dollars in January 2008, the situation was already bad enough. In January, their 10,000,000 Zimbabwe Dollar was equivalent to US$3.90 at the height of the 165,000% inflation rate.

Today, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (tried to find their link but to no avail) has done something that nobody has done before which is to issue a 500,000,000 (Five Hundred Million) Zimbabwe Dollar note. Today, their 500,000,000 Zimbabwe Dollar is worthed US$2.00.

What's the percentage of increase like? 10,000% on top of 165,000%???
Which works out to 1,650,000,000% inflation rate right now? One Billion???????

Going back to history, in 1980, one Zimbabwe dollar was worth more than US$1.00.
Reading: Zimbabwe bank issues $500m note - BBC News/Africa
Tags: Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Dollar, Economics, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe