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Zimbabwe has  231,000,000% inflation.

The wikipedia article on the  Zimbabwean dollar reads like a Keystone Cops comedy.

A Reuters article reads “The country’s largest bank note, a 100 billion Zimbabwe dollar bill introduced on Monday, cannot buy a loaf of bread…”

On July 24th 2008, a “Second” 100 billion ZWD note could buy 3 eggs.

Of course since then the currency was devalued by 8 decimal places. And continuing inflation has moved things along another 6 decimal places. Their currency has been devalued a couple times.

A little quick math (that’s probably wrong, I’m no wiz at such things) tells me that 1 US Dollar could buy  32,145,960,000,000,000,000,000 (yes, 3.2 x 10^24) “First” Zimbabwean dollars from back in 1983.

(that number calculated from here. Here’s the ratios: First ZWD:Second ZWD = 500,000:650. Second ZWD:Third ZWD = 758,000,000,000:1,780. Third ZWD:current US dollar = 98,300,000,000:1)

Thanks for the pointer Trav and thanks for providing my RDA of absurdism Mr. Mugabe.

update 11-2-08: Hey would you look at that. Someone on Wikipedia made a chart  for the most part agreeing with my 3.2×10^24 estimate. :-)

update 11-13-08:

Take a look at this screenshot I took of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe  I took today.