But a useful measure of how far the country has fallen is a new law which states that banks should take cattle and the like as security for loans.
Zimbabwe’s bank managers, already strapped for cash for their customers, may soon have to worry about where to put cattle if the new law takes effect.
It’s nothing new, of course; cattle ranchers all over the world use the value of their stock as collateral with the bank.
But Zimbabwe is different; this would not be a loan to a man with a dairy cow to take it to the bull for example, because it’s having that next calf that is going to keep the milk coming and the milk is the income stream to repay the loan. Instead, cows would be accepted as security for credit in a country where most land confiscated from white farmers still carry old titles and cannot be used to secure credit by the unlawful new black owners.
