For years, of course, Zimbabwe's economy has been a chewing-gum and baling-wire affair, with 70 percent unemployment, triple-digit inflation and a currency no foreign creditor will accept. Prosperity has been receding since the late 1990's, when the government's attacks on international creditors and its seizure of commercial farms set off a cascade of economic backlashes.Past economic plunges have provoked food riots, gas-line protests and government crackdowns. This time the government has sent the police to quell mobs outside groceries and gas stations, and started rounding up street merchants who deal too openly in black-market goods and selling currency at illicit rates.
Yet some say that the current crisis, perhaps the worst since the economy began foundering, may mark a turning point. Zimbabwe's main economic problems - capital flight, a dire shortage of foreign exchange with which to buy imports, and turbocharged inflation - are now so severe that they are eroding what remains of the industrial and agricultural base.
Manufacturing has slowed to a trickle, hamstrung by shortages of fuel and imported components. Businesses have been driven to barter and the black market, adding to the inflation. Appeals for government help are mostly fruitless. The government is all but broke.
Yes, it's that bad and possibly worse...
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