You’ve probably already read that a few days ago, Zimbabwe started printing $50-billion-dollar notes, and then a couple days after that, those became insufficient and they printed $1-trillion-dollar notes. When you have a shortage of wheelbarrows to carry around the quantity of smaller notes that would be necessary to do your basic grocery shopping, you really have no alternative other than to print bigger bills, right?

I started thinking about what possibly could be the upside, and, well, I guess it’s one way of discouraging counterfeiting of your currency. Who can crank out fake currency plates at that rate, and beyond that, what would really be the point when the government can print it faster than you can? Probably the most lucrative business to be in within the entire country would be the counterfeiting of euros or something.

Nobody does currency commentary better than the goldbugs, and this morning Caroline B sent me the latest words of the Mogambo Guru. He weighed in on the utility of these big banknotes:

The question is, “What can you buy in Zimbabwe with a banknote for 50 billion Zimbabwe dollars?”

Immediately, a sea of hands are raised, and my heart soars at their happy, expectant faces, eager to participate and learn, and I am so proud of them that they had all read the same article I had, but since I have already provided the damned “quality time” thing, I instantly lose interest, and simply declare, “It’s enough to buy just two loaves of bread! The biggest banknote in Zimbabwe is worth only enough to buy two lousy, stinking loaves of bread! Fifty billion Zimbabwe dollars for two loaves of bread!”

I think he exaggerates – AFP said that three days ago, the trillion-dollar bill was worth about $300US – but with inflation running at an estimated 89.7 sextillion percent per CATO’s figures, give the above statement a couple more days and it will soon be accurate.