The cost of visiting the dentist in Zimbabwe!
John Robertson, a Zimbabwean economist, went to the dentist yesterday with a painful tooth that needed urgent work, but before he could get it done, he had to arrange payment. His choices were these:
Either he could pay in Zim dollars, in which case he'd need a bag of them, because the bill for his dentistry was $1.3 trillion, plus the limit for cash withdrawals from his bank account was only $25 billion daily.
Or he could pay by check on his Zimbabwean bank account, in which case, since it takes a week to clear the check and the Zim dollar is plummeting in value, he'd have to write the check for double the amount, $2.6 trillion.
Or he could just go out and find foreign exchange, either South African rand or U.S. dollars, about $50. "My only choice was to go out and find some foreign exchange."
