FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF SOCIALISM--EVERY MAN A MILLIONAIRE:

A nation of millionaires who can't afford to buy anything: Zimbabweans are speaking out with candour against the Government as the country descends further into economic chaos (Jonathan Clayton, 5/08/06, Times of London)

WITH his torn shirt and tattered trousers held up by a piece of string, Barons Chikamba is an unlikely millionaire.

His life is a daily struggle despite the seemingly astronomical prices that he charges for even a short hop in the battered car that he uses to ferry visitors around Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

Even his lowest fare is more than a million Zimbabwean dollars. It may sound a lot, but in a country where even the official rate of inflation is nearly 1,000 per cent — by far the highest for a country not at war — it is really less than £6.

Visitors arriving at Harare’s smart, modernistic airport quickly become millionaires simply by changing $10 at the official rate of Z$101,000 (55p) to the US dollar. The black market rate is roughly double that. “Yes, I am a millionaire — a millionaire who can afford nothing at all,” Mr Chikamba says. “Zimbabweans are all millionaires today.

We are a country of millionaires, but it goes nowhere and no one has anything.”

Mr Chikamba chuckles at the thought, but for him and millions like him, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation is no joke. Last week the basket of essential basics that an average lowincome family needs for survival rocketed to Z$41 million a month in a country where more than 60 per cent of the workforce is jobless and others earn as little as Z$4 million a month.

With the highest denomination banknote, Z$50,000, it can take almost as long as a taxi journey itself to pay the fare.

Pretty amusing, as long as you don't care about any of the victims, to see how enthusiastic the Left is about Chavez and Morales doing the same to their nations.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 8, 2006 9:04 AM