Zimbabwe used to enjoy a healthy and vital economy. Today, its official inflation rate has surged to 231,000,000%. Zimbabweans have seen their livelihoods go down the open cesspool, healthcare evaporate, and live in unsanitary shantytowns. The president, Robert Mugabe, chief architect of all this misery and hyperinflation, resides in a luxurious palace.

The United States of America used to enjoy a healthy and vital economy. Today, its stock market is down, unemployment is up. Thousands of Americans have seen their pensions evaporate, millions can’t afford basic healthcare, whole families have been foreclosed, thrown onto the street, now live in cars, or under overpasses. The president, chief architect of all this misery and hyperventilation, hangs out with cats like Hamid “Poppy” Karzai in a luxurious palace.

The currency of Zimbabwe is the Dollar. It is often abbreviated to Z$, to distinguish it from other dollar denominated currencies. The Z$ dollar, given its Alice in Wonderland inflation is, to all intents and purposes, worthless.

The currency of the United States is the Dollar. These days, it is being drastically abbreviated. Ben Bernanke, that jolly gnome who chairs the so-called Federal Reserve, is at present overseeing the fiasco. Yesterday, he placed an urgent call to his hero and mentor, “Bobby” Mugabe, who suggested renaming the US Dollar the Zzzzzzzz$.

As in comatose.

In an unrelated development, a human rights delegation from Darfur arrived at Andrews Air Force Base with a planeload of tents, medications, and emergency rations for the unemployed and foreclosed of the United States. They also brought purification tablets to treat European-owned Budweiser.