Note: This is post #104 in a weekly video series on basic economics.

Imagine having to pay $417.00 per sheet of toilet paper. That actuallyhappened in Zimbabwe.

AsAlex Tabarrok notes, around 2000, Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, was in need of cash to bribe his enemies and reward his allies. He had to be clever in his approach, given that Zimbabwe’s economy was doing lousy and his people were starving. Sow what did he do? He tapped the country’s printing presses and printed moremoney.

Zimbabweans became millionaires, says Tabarrok, but a million dollars may have only been enough to buy you one chicken during the hyperinflation crisis.

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