Recession?

Yep, it's official. The United States economy, as of yesterday, was declared to be in a recession. Party, anyone?

At least we aren't Zimbabwe. As of two weeks ago, the inflation rate of the Zimbabwe dollar has breached sextillion percent (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) and the exchange rate with the US Dollar was thirteen quadrillion (13,000,000,000,000,000). Essentially this means if you wanted to buy a $0.25 USD gumball with Zimbabwe money, you would need 3,250,000,000,000,000 ZWR. Yup. So essentially what this does is drive people to immediately exchange their money for something that holds more value (USD or something more local), since the inflation rate causes the ZWR to lose 50% of its value daily. If you're paid $10 for something today, then it's worth $5 tomorrow. In a week it's worth less than eight cents.

So maybe that party is due after all... at least for the Zimbabweans. Better to spend the money right now rather than wait for it to melt in your pocket!