News Story of the Day: Another blow against the United States dollar? Perhaps. Zimbabwe announced that China will cancel approximately $40 million worth of the impoverished African nation’s debt due to mature this year. At the same time, the Zimbabwean government is seeking to expand its use of the Chinese yuan renminbi.
The second-largest economy in the world has quickly become the biggest investor in Zimbabwe, which was once an economic powerhouse of Africa. Since 2010, Zimbabwe has been given more than $1 billion in low interest loans from China. The Asian state is now Zimbabwe’s second-largest trading partner after South Africa.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa confirmed in a statement that China and Zimbabwe were negotiating the final amount of debt to be cancelled.
“They (China) said they are cancelling our debts that are maturing this year. Right now, preliminarily, we are coming up with a figure of $40 million,” Chinamasa said in a statement.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been beaten and battered since President Robert Mugabe rose to power. The country’s own currency was demolished after experiencing unprecedented inflation.
Chart of the Day: Do you have a drone? Consumers in the United States have an immense appetite for drones. As the chart below (courtesy of Quartz) shows, American consumers continue to ramp up their purchases of consumer drones. Currently, the most popular drone manufacturer comes from China called DJI. As usual, Western governments are putting a damper on our fun by imposing regulations and prohibitions.
Illustration of the Day: Technology has greatly improved over the past 50 years (as if you need to be told that). It’s amazing how powerful and how small technology has become. Just think of it: that smartphone of yours contains more power and intelligence than all of the computers at NASA during the first Apollo mission. The image below (via AEI) showcases just how big a device was to store five megabytes of data compared to today.
If the government was in charge of the computer market, Professor Frank would be right: computers would be as big as castles and only kings and queens would own it!
Quote of the Day: Cafe Hayek published a superb quote earlier this week from Harold Demsetz’s 1979 review of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The New Industrial State entitled “The Technostructure, Forty-Six Years Later.” Of course, this is something that renowned economist Thomas Sowell has warned about for so long.
“Beware the intellectual who seeks power over our decisions and over the persuasion to which we can respond, especially when he seeks this power to prevent us from doing what he thinks we should not desire to do.”
Video of the Day: Last week, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in nine years. Media outlets sought out the opinions and analysis from a wave of prominent individuals, including former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul. Dr. Paul, a staunch critic of the U.S. central bank, explained that half of the country’s population is already experiencing a recession. It seems the Fed’s money printing ways are only helping the top. Be ready for price inflation!
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