Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Zimbabwe Reaches ‘Tipping Point’ as Inflation Blacked Out

  1. #1

    Zimbabwe Reaches ‘Tipping Point’ as Inflation Blacked Out

    Zimbabwe’s finance minister responded to the country’s worsening economic crisis last week by blacking out inflation statistics for the next six months, boosting the price of the little power that’s available five-fold and admitting what the International Monetary Fund told him in April: the economy will contact for the first time since 2008.At the same time he spoke of fiscal surpluses and a relaxation in local ownership requirements for the key platinum industry. This all happened in a country with daily power cuts of up to 18 hours and shortages of everything from bread to motor fuel. People are receiving food aid in cities for the first time and a drought has necessitated the import of hundreds of thousands of tons of corn.
    When Robert Mugabe was ousted after four decades in power in late 2017 his replacement, Emmerson Mnangagwa, promised economic regeneration and declared that Zimbabwe is “open for business.” Instead things have gone from bad to worse with the effects of rapidly expanding money supply through the sale of Treasury bills under Mugabe’s rule coming home to roost and this year’s outlawing of the U.S. dollar in favor of a local quasi currency that can’t be traded outside the country causing panic.
    “Zimbabwe is at a tipping point and if it falls over the edge it’s going to be quite a long way in coming back,” said Derek Matyszak, a Zimbabwe-based research consultant for South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies. “The wheels are falling off. There is no way out of a Ponzi scheme other than a massive infusion of cash to pay off your creditors.”
    The country with the world’s highest inflation rate after Venezuela also suspended annual consumer-price data for the next six months. The authorities need to collect comparable data since the introduction of the new currency in February. That marked a return to 2009, when the country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the U.S. dollar and other currencies after inflation surged to an estimated 500 billion percent.
    If the more commonly used black-market exchange rate is used, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation is currently 558%, about three times the official rate, while Venezuela’s is 35,004%, according to Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

    More at: https://news.yahoo.com/zimbabwe-reac...050000941.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    Riot police in Zimbabwe on Friday fired teargas and beat demonstrators who defied a protest ban, as the opposition accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government of surpassing Robert Mugabe's regime in brutality.Scores of people gathered in a square in the capital Harare to demonstrate against the country's worsening economy, despite massive police deployment and a ban upheld by a court the same morning.
    Police cornered one group of protesters and beat them with batons, an AFP reporter saw.
    One woman was seen being carried into a Red Cross ambulance.
    The protesters then regrouped, singing songs condemning police brutality. As the crowd swelled, police fired teargas and water cannons.
    "People were just singing... peacefully. Then they saw the police coming -- they were encircling people, they were actually surrounding the supporters then they came closer to us and started beating people," a 35-year-old protester who gave her name as Achise told AFP.
    She said police beat "an old woman".
    "This is worse than during colonial times," said a man who declined to be identified.
    Police said in a statement they had arrested 91 people for various offences, but rights groups said there had been 128 arrests.
    - 'Worse than Mugabe' -
    Dozens of police were deployed in running battles with protesters, many of them from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
    The protest took place in Africa Unity Square, overlooking the Zimbabwean parliament, is where crowds gathered in November 2017 to demand Mugabe, the country's long-time autocratic ruler, step down.
    MDC leader Nelson Chamisa slammed Friday's "brutal" clampdown as even worse than during Mugabe's era.
    "We not only have an illegitimate regime in this country, we have a rogue regime," Chamisa said. Seven people suffered serious injuries, including a woman, he said.
    "What is clear is that it's turning out that the regime in Harare is far worse than the Mugabe regime. One would be persuaded to think that Mugabe is back."


    Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 21 human rights groups, on Thursday said six opposition and rights activists had been abducted and tortured by unidentified assailants ahead of the demonstration. Chamisa said the number had grown to 18.
    Chamisa vowed to push on with more protests.
    "What you are seeing is just but a teaser, this is an introduction, we are going to be on the streets until the state responds," he said.
    Friday's protests are the first since rallies in January against Mnangagwa's decision to hike fuel prices that ended in deadly clashes with troops.
    At least 17 people were killed and scores wounded after the army used force, including live ammunition, to crush the demonstrations.
    Amnesty International condemned Friday's police action saying it demonstrated "just how far the authorities will go to repress dissent".
    The British embassy in Harare said it was "concerned at the images of the heavy-handed response to disperse crowds in Harare".
    US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy called on Zimbabwe's security forces to "respect human rights and to exercise restraint".

    More at: https://news.yahoo.com/zimbabwe-poli...103355065.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  4. #3
    That's because Mugabe's replacement is also a Marxist.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    That's because Mugabe's replacement is also a Marxist.
    Shhh that's racist

  6. #5
    A week after the death of Robert Mugabe, and just a few months after the re-introduction of the ZimDollar, Zimbabwe faces another hyperinflation scare as inflation soars and the central bank hikes rates drastically to stall the currency's collapse.
    Just three months ago, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) issued a directive banning cash withdrawals from all Foreign Currency (FCA) Nostro Accounts following the promulgation of Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019, which reintroduced the local Zimbabwe Dollar and scrapped the multi-currency regime. Nostros/FCA holders will have to liquidate their balances to be usable in Zimbabwe. As Pindula News noted at the time, what this essentially means is that if one earns USD, deposited into their Nostro account, they can’t draw the cash but will have to get it in Zim Dollar using that day’s interbank rate.
    And it hasn't helped as the black market ZimDollar has collapsed since...



    The economy is at risk of contracting this year for the first time since 2008. Zimbabwe’s woes date back to Mugabe’s rule, when he allowed ruling party-backed militants to violently seize thousands of white-owned commercial farms starting in 2000. Agricultural exports and tax revenue collapsed, the central bank began printing banknotes so the government could pay its workers, and inflation skyrocketed to the point where prices were doubling every day.
    And in an effort to counter that soaring inflation, Zimbabwe's central bank said on Friday it had raised its overnight borrowing rate from 50% to 70%.
    The central bank added, in a monetary policy statement, that it was introducing dollar-denominated savings bonds to try to stimulate greater saving.
    As Bloomberg notes, Mugabe's successor as president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has failed to deliver on his promises of a revival.

    The southern African nation suffers from spiraling inflation and chronic shortages of foreign exchange, bread and electricity, prompting protests that have been brutally repressed.
    But, as Bloomberg reports, in his latest attempt to stabilize an economy in freefall, Zimbabwean Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube established a Monetary Policy Committee. The introduction of the MPC will help provide oversight of the central bank, though its mandate remains unclear, said Lloyd Mlotshwa, head of equities at brokerage IH Securities Ltd. in Harare, the capital.
    “Until their terms of reference are clarified, it’s difficult to gauge how effective the monetary policy committee will be,” he said. “For example, if there is a vote on interest rates, does each member have one vote?”

    Ncube reintroduced the Zimbabwe dollar, which the country had abandoned in 2009, and banned the use of foreign currency in June.
    While Ncube has suspended the release of annual inflation statistics until February, economists estimate that the rate is between 230% and 570%. The nation’s 400,000 civil servants are demanding increased pay after the devaluation decimated their spending power.
    Ncube's other plans include entering into an International Monetary Fund-supervised program to reduce debt, as well as winning debt relief from the so-called Paris Club of creditors, the World Bankand African Development Bank.
    Widespread frustration over rampant unemployment and poverty has boiled over into strikes and demonstrations. The round of protests in August, called by the main opposition party in the capital, Harare, saw police arrest at least 128 people and use tear gas and batons to disperse others.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...erinflation-20
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  7. #6
    I am sure CNN, MSNBC, Micheal Moore would call Zimbabwe and South Africa Great Progress



Similar Threads

  1. Tipping Point
    By millercards in forum Ron Paul Forum
    Replies: 75
    Last Post: 02-23-2012, 02:10 AM
  2. The Tipping Point.
    By TheOnlyJustCause4505 in forum Ron Paul Forum
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 01-10-2012, 10:25 PM
  3. The Tax Tipping point
    By MsDoodahs in forum Economy & Markets
    Replies: 22
    Last Post: 10-23-2008, 08:33 PM
  4. The Tipping Point
    By Mauiboy86 in forum Grassroots Central
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 11-28-2007, 11:24 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •