Originally Posted by sabang

Mugabe out of Monopoly money

HARARE: It has come to this - Zimbabwe is about to run out of the paper to print money on.
Fidelity Printers & Refiners, the state-owned company that tirelessly churns out bank notes for the Mugabe regime, was thrown into a crisis early this month after a German company stopped supplying bank note paper because of concerns over Zimbabwe's recent violent presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent by international observers.
The printing operation slowed drastically. Two-thirds of the 1000-strong workforce was ordered to take leave, and two of the three money-printing shifts were cancelled.
The result on the streets was an immediate cash crunch.
"If you think this currency shortage is bad, wait two weeks. By then it will be a disaster," said a senior Fidelity staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The paper will run out in two weeks, he said....

Despite the recent currency shortage, the Zimbabwe dollar has continued to slide against the US dollar and shopkeepers are increasing prices steeply.
Before the crunch, a beer at a pub in Harare cost $15 billion. At 5pm on July 4, it cost $100 billion ($US4 at the time) in the same bar. An hour later, the price had gone up to $150 billion ($US6).