The former breadbasket of Africa has $217 in the bank

The Atlantic reports:

Zimbabwe Is Down to Its Last $217

There are cash-strapped governments and there are broke governments. And then there’s Zimbabwe, which, after paying last week’s government salaries, has just $217 left in the bank. No, we didn’t forget any zeroes to the end of that figure. Zimbabwe, the country that’s home to some of the world’s largest platinum and diamond reserves, literally has the same financial standing as a 14-year-old girl after a really good birthday party. The country’s finance minister admitted as much in a press conference on Tuesday. “Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 [left] in government coffers,” Tendai Biti told reporters. “The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment. We are failing to meet our targets.”

So it seems. However, Zimbabwe is hardly a stranger to financial hyperbole. The economy started to come apart at the seams in 2000, when President Robert Mugabe seized the land of over 4,000 white-owned farmers [sic], effectively dismantling the country’s agriculture industry.

Ed H., who sent the story, writes:

I give you Zimbabwe after 35 years of Black Rule. The definition of Black Rule being a country ruled by the black grasp of reality. Once the richest agricultural land in Africa which exported billions of dollars in food, Zimbabwe now has $217 USD in the bank. Its people eat mud cakes mixed with cooking oil. Mugabe’s favorite wife was recently spotted in Hong Kong shopping for Gucci. (Sound familiar?) The inflation rate is 79,600,000,000 percent per MONTH. With few exceptions, this is what blacks do with everything they touch.

By the way when white racists ran Rhodesia/Zimbabwe the economy was so sound that the Rhodesian Dollar (1964) was worth $2.80 USD.

LA replies:

I would just add that Obama has essentially the same view of reality, and the same agenda, as Mugabe. Black poverty is caused by white wealth. Therefore the cure for black poverty is to seize white wealth and transfer it to blacks, which simply accomplishes the destruction of all wealth, except for the black elite which pockets the last remaining bit of wealth until it too disappears.

That’s Black Rule, baby.

(Note: for a further discussion of Obama’s thinking on race and inequality, see my March 2008 article, “The real meaning of Obama’s race speech.”)

- end of initial entry -

William R. writes:

The passage from the Atlantic should read “white-owned farms,” not “white-owned farmers.” The irony is wonderfully telling of how black slavery crowds out everything else in the minds of liberals when they think about Africa or blacks.

Mike writes:

Hey—they’re doing great! They have ca. $16.5 Trillion more than we have.
/sarcasm

Gintas writes:

Well, at least they’re in the black!

Buck writes:

The Atlantic writer suggests that the U.S. is the most likely country to come to Zimbabwe’s rescue. But, wouldn’t Obama be paralized by his own anti-colonialism? Colonialism is evil. The evil has been removed from Zimbabwe, which is now free of it and back to its natural, and rightful state.

The Telegraph quotes Zimbabwe’s finance minister: “It is not sustainable. If Zimbabwe was a private company it would have closed down.”

Maybe Obama can deem it a bailout.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 02, 2013 10:44 AM | Send