Moving jobs!

I have just noticed that my last three posts were dedicated to Zimbabwe. I must confess this country has been a great part of my live. I have enjoyed myself there. But I now must start looking forward.

I had an interesting job before me for the next few months. I have been a victim of a preemptive strike by a bunch of bureaucrats whose life depends on titles and what it says on their business cards. I have not had the necessary support from my superiors and have resigned.

I am now awaiting a decision on my future. I hope to go back to my basics and work on European Union affairs.

BTW I travelled to Switzerland this weekend. They are supposed to be in Schengen, you know the no borders in Europe agreement. But THEY, as usual, have to be different. So they still have passport control at their airports. They want to be different and the rest of us allow it. Why?

Gideon does it again!

Only yesterday I commented on Zimbabwe´s hyperinflation, and the measures Gideon Gono, the Governor of the Reserve Bank took while I was there, to try to cope. Today I wake up to the news that he has slashed a further 12 zeroes off the currency. Added to the 10 five months ago, and 3 zeroes before that, it amounts to a total of 25! ( follow the link on the title for news coverage).

The real problem in that country is whether the political agreement works. Why would Mugabe have changed his mind? It is now nearly one year since Morgan Tsvangitai won the elections outright. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Nobody was expecting it and " independent" pollers couldn´t believe it, so they hinted that maybe, he had not reached 50% of the votes cast. Mugabe and ZANU-PF took 3 weeks to react, but when they did, they rushed through this small opening and have been riding high ever since. 

I would ask Morgan not to enter the government. Time is on his side. I don´t agree with those who think that he should accept because the people are suffering too much. Mugabe is to blame for the suffering, not Tsvangirai. 

I would ask Morgan not to trust Mugabe. He has proven he is unworthy of the respect the world placed on him and his government in 1980. Let him fade away, Morgan, so that your country may rise again.

From Hyperinflation to Deflation

I have just lived in a hyper-inflationary situation for a few years. A a matter of fact, Zimbabwe has probably been the country with the highest rate of inflation in History. The actual rate is unimportant, when a loaf of bread costs 30 trillion dollars, the problem for the ordinary citizen lies elsewhere. 

When one thinks that it was less than six months ago that the Reserve Bank cut 10, that´s right, ten zeroes off the currency and for a few brief days, the dollar US hovered around 4,500, then things start getting funny. 

Again, not even 2 years ago, the Reserve Bank cut another 3 zeroes off the currency of the time. That is a total of 13 zeroes off, and still a loaf of bread is 30 trillion Zimbabwean dollars.

But the real problem is that the salary of a Teacher, or a Nurse, is also 30 trillion. That is to say their monthly salary doesn´t cover a single loaf of bread. The ZANU-PF solution: you simply make bread unavailable. You can´t find bread in Zimbabwe today.

After that experience, I come back home to Europe and find myself in a deflationary situation. All in a matter of hours! Prices of nearly all goods and services are falling quite sharply, and people are still not buying. Most European governments´ solution: spend their way out of recession and deflation. Wrong choice again! 

As one of my favorite blog writers reminded us all yesterday, Margaret Thatcher once said:  “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”

Today I have to think that something is really very wrong with this world we live in.