The One Hundred Trillion Dollar Note and Other Visual Aids

Patrick McGroarty and Farai Mutsaka have a great article in the Wall Street Journal about this famous one hundred trillion dollar note from Zimbabwe,including the fact that I carry one around in my wallet everywhere I go. Whenever someone says inflation is not caused by central banks printing too much money, I pull out this note and tell the story of Zimabwe’s hyperinflation. Although Paul Ryan and I collaborated on an oped on monetary policy recently, we did not coordinate on this use of the famous note.

If you are interested in relating this story to the Fed, I recommend adding a couple of other pictures including this photo of a QEIII license plate in Washington DC and the photo of $5 a gallon gasoline. I think these may have helped Fed rethink the idea of going beyond QEII.