Economics in Africa...

Poverty in Africa has been on the rise since the late 1980s as the newly independent countries, left with little capacity to manage the day to day operations of a nation, began to fail. I would say none more so than Zimbabwe.

Since early this summer I have been on Zimbabwe inflation watch. I am regularly astonished at the devastation that poor government policies have wrought on majority of the population. We just think the economy in the US is leaving the average American behind. In Zimbabwe, even after a currency adjustment earlier this year, the US dollar is worth 1.1 million Zimbabwean dollars. Can you even imagine that? And to make matters worse, the basic staple of survival - a bag of cornmeal - just went up to 19.2 million Zimbabwean dollars. That is getting out of reach for even some of the more reasonably stable families.

Let's get even more out of control with the numbers here for a second. If six zeroes seemed a major hurdle you obviously haven't heard about the inflation rate. The official inflation rate in Zimbabwe is 231 million percent annually. However, independent analysts estimate it to actually be around 1 quadrillion percent annually and the CATO Institute assesses the inflation rate to be 89.7 sextillion percent annually (that's 20 zeroes).

Let's top off the economic woes with a cholera outbreak that has killed 100 people in the past two days alone, an HIV prevelance rate of almost 25%, and more than 5 million people (almost half the population) face starvation. My heart goes out to those innocent souls caught in the massively corrupt web and poor management of the arrogant Mugabe.

We in the United States live a rather privileged existence in comparison to most Africans.