Apparently no one has alerted the government of Zimbabwe about the magic of the printing press:
Zimbabwe’s finance minister has taken a hard look at the cash strapped country’s bank accounts – and discovered it only has £138 and 34 pence left. Tendai Biti made the announcement at press conference yesterday declaring: ‘Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 in government coffers. Mr Biti went on to tell the shocked news reporters that they were individually likely to have healthier bank balances than the state’s.
Ah, my mistake. It appears they do have a central bank and a printing press; this is merely a currency translation problem. The government has ZWD 46.6 quantillion in the bank, which is the equivalent of $217 at the official exchange rate.
Although I do have a vision of the Dollarific Duo, Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman, two econoheroes helicoptering into countries with contracting economies and rescuing them before riding off into the sunset on their tandem Neo-Keynesian cycle.