Redstate

Posted at 6:22pm on Mar. 9, 2008 Insanity: Doing The Same Thing Over And Over Again And Expecting A Different Result Each Time

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

By any measure, Robert Mugabe is insane:

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has signed into law the country's indigenisation legislation, empowering the state to take over control of foreign- and white-owned businesses. The move comes just three weeks before presidential and parliamentary elections that Mr Mugabe is favourite to win.

The indigenisation law was approved by parliament in September but the timing of the presidential assent suggests the ruling Zanu-PF party sees it as a vote winner. In the past week, the state-controlled media have stepped up its attacks on the opposition, accusing Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and independent candidate Simba Makoni, a former Zanu-PF finance minister, of planning to return land to dispossessed white farmers.

In its editorial, the state-owned Sunday Mail said that in gazetting the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, the ruling party had sent a "a clear message that its path to prosperity is through empowerment of the indigenous people of this country". The law provides that foreign-owned companies and those owned by people who were not disadvantaged during colonial times (whites and Asians) must sell 51 per cent of their shares to indigenous (black) Zimbabweans.

And of course, this kind of policy has been so successful thus far, nyet? Must be part of a continuing presidential party.

Posted in Foreign Affairs | Robert Mugabe's Incompetence — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:14am on Feb. 27, 2008 Sentence Of The Day

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

"In Zimbabwe today, everyone is a millionaire."

Posted at 2:17am on Feb. 21, 2008 A Birthday Present

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

And a most unwelcome one--unless, of course, the destruction of Zimbabwe is intentional:

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, celebrates his 84th birthday on Thursday with an unwelcome present from his government's statistical office which says the country's inflation rate surged to a new record of over 100,000 per cent in January.

Official figures show prices rose 121 per cent during January, and while this was half the 240 per cent experienced in December and the lowest monthly figure since September 2007, it still takes the annual rate to 100,580 per cent.

Just linger over that passage a few times. It's far more powerful than anything I can write.

Posted in Foreign Affairs | Robert Mugabe's Incompetence — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:36pm on Dec. 27, 2007 I Know This Will Come As A Shock . . .

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

But things are just getting worse in Zimbabwe:

For some 10m Zimbabweans, Christmas 2007 will be the worst in memory. As if coping with inflation, ­estimated at more than 40,000 per cent, and shortages of food, fuel, electricity and water were not enough, they cannot draw their money from bank accounts because of a cash shortage engineered by the authorities.

For the past fortnight people have had to queue for hours - even days - at teller machines and banks to try to draw out their cash, amid repeated promises from Gideon Gono, central bank governor, the crisis would be resolved by Christmas.

On Wednesday, Mr Gono announced the issue of three new large-denomination notes, the largest of Z$750,000 ($25 at the official exchange rate or $1.50 at the more realistic parallel rate).

At the same time, he withdrew the previous largest note (Z$200,000) as he believed that 97 per cent of the Z$67,000bn note issue ($13.3m at the parallel rate) was being held by speculators, hoarders, unscrupulous business people and "cash barons".

Businessmen say that because they cannot withdraw cash from the banks, they must buy it in the parallel market at a premium of 30 per cent and more, to pay suppliers and workers.

Read on . . .

Posted in Foreign Affairs | inflation | Robert Mugabe's Incompetence | Zimbabwe — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:46pm on Nov. 27, 2007 You Don't Have To Be Much Of An Economist To See That The Zimbabwean Economy Is A Disaster

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

To wit.