people from starving to death if they destroy their own farms. 3) I am declaring winterbucks. They are a private currency of my own making. Will you please choose to swap from for $USD? (As we know that's DOOMED!) I promise I will not print any more winterbucks after our swap. Let me know how many you want and I'll fire up my printer. Curios: Are you really being serious about Zimbabwe? Have you ever lived in a third world country? 1) Zimbabwe probably had very limited tax collection, and it was becoming worse over time. Taxes are a key element to creating demand for currency. 2) Zimbabwe was almost certainly operating on a mixed currency regime where people carried Z$ as well as other currencies, almost certainly US$. People in Zimbabwe made a decision about how much Z$ to carry vs US$ 3) As Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwe's real productive output, there was simply less stuff to buy. This could trigger hyperinflation even if the country was running a surplus. It continues to be bizarre to me that people hold up Zimbabwe as an example of what happens to a currency when the Government "prints too much". In the list of things Mugabe has done to run his country into the ground, "printing too much currency" probably doesn't even make the top 50. If a government disintegrates, its currency will follow, not matter how well that Government has managed the currency up until its point of disintegration. Well, first of