Dizzying trillions

There’s much being said across the ocean about how many trillions are to be gained from new trade policies and foreign aid cuts.

The White House says US$ billions are already flowing in daily despite a few setbacks along the way. Early investment promises are already near the seven trillion mark.

This Z$100 trillion banknote has was the highest denomination ever printed since currency was invented millennia ago.

It bought a handful of groceries and formal deals had to be done in quadrillions (one thousand trillion or 1 with 15 zeroes) and decillions (1 plus 33 zeroes) until it was abandoned in the ultra-inflationary economy to make way for a series of equally useless Zdollar bills.

The US dollar is king in most local transactions now, irksome as that may be to a government that won’t admit all its fiscal policies have failed.

In rumblings of discontent countrywide, it tends to be forgotten that the majority of the population (around 56 percent) were born after independence in 1980. The so-called “Born Free” generation mark the 45th anniversary of Independence next week, on April 18, clashing with the long Easter holiday weekend.

But many won’t be celebrating. For 30 years they have grown up with electricity blackouts, worsening crime and corruption, broken railways and infrastructure and currency chaos … it’s all they have known.

The now-grown-up girl next door went to school in darkness and did her homework in candle light. To her, that was the norm. She is accustomed to nothing else. She won’t be demonstrating on the streets and risk getting shot anytime soon.

Perhaps this is one reason why public protests don’t have legs yet.

Before the Americans ‘paused’ their global tariffs, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, as is ever the case. It goes like this. When stock markets plummet, buy shares on the cheap. Sell when the markets recover, if only inching upwards.