Comments by "Christopher Conard" (@christopherconard2831) on "Robert Mugabe: Zimbabwe’s Downward Spiral" video.

I have a couple Z$100,000,000 bills along with some other Zimbabwean money. Probably over a billion dollars. At the time he took power this would have made me one of the wealthiest people on the planet. At the peak of his power, it couldn't buy me a cheeseburger. This and death are his legacy. Nothing more.
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@pieterniemandt212 I forget what I paid. Not much, but way over market value. There was a guy from South Africa pitching what looked like a variant of the Nigerian Prince scam. Then he explained he had a pile of Zimbabwean money, unfortunately it was almost worthless. But he figured if Americans and Europeans would pay good money for broken concrete (pieces of the Berlin Wall), they might buy his paper. As a sales technique it must have worked, because he sold out.
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It wasn't a drought that caused the crop failures and famine of the early 2000s. It was another effect of Mugabe's policies. Zimbabwe's reservoirs were full. But they couldn't deliver the water where it was needed because the people who maintained the system had fled/been kicked out of the country. Not that their being there would have helped much. The people had dug up or destroyed much of the piping infrastructure trying to get metal to sell for scrap.
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