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Zimbabwe When Even The Central Bank Cant Keep Up

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by Felix Salmon
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Genius   Extra Credit, Monday Edition

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Dec 01 2008 5:07pm EDT

Zimbabwe: When Even the Central Bank Can't Keep Up

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe reports:

Between the 10th and the 20th of November, 2008, total fraudulent cheques we intercepted in the clearing system had risen to $60 hexillion ($60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

Someone really ought to tell Zimbabwe's central bankers that there's no such thing as a hexillion. They might as well say that they've intercepted sixty gajillion dollars' worth of checks.

The word they're looking for is sextillion, as they'd know if they only read this blog. On the other hand, the number of times that someone has helpfully written out a number first in words and then in bracketed numerals has now increased to one (1) from the prior zero (0).

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