On account of the Mugabe dictatorship's fueling hyperinflation by running the printing presses, Zimbabwe's battered currency, which was floated last month, reached a new low today. The U.S. dollar is now worth 1 billion Zimbabwean dollars.

Today, Reuters reported:

Zimbabwe's currency plunged to a new record low on Thursday, trading at an average 1 billion to the U.S. dollar on a recently introduced interbank market and triggering massive price increases.

Traders were quoting the Zimbabwean dollar at between 995 million and 1.45 billion against the greenback in Thursday morning trade, up from an average 700 million at the beginning of the week. The currency has depreciated by about 84 percent since the central bank effectively floated it in early May after years of an official peg.