Zehn Jahre ohne Kredit....

Das US-amerikansiche Wochenmagazin Newsweek hat ein Interview mit Gideon Gono, dem Vorsitzenden der Zentralbank von Simbabwe veröffentlicht. Gono, mitverantwortlich für die Hyperinflation in dem südafrikanischen Land, rechtfertigt darin seinen Kurs. Der Mediawatchblog bringt die wichtigsten Passagen:

Now the global economy is also going through a credit crunch. What do you make of that?
I sit back and see the world today crying over the recent credit crunch, becoming hysterical about something which has not even lasted for a year, and I have been living with it for 10 years. My country has had to go for the past decade without credit.


Your critics blame your monetary policies for Zimbabwe's economic problems.
I've been condemned by traditional economists who said that printing money is responsible for inflation. Out of the necessity to exist, to ensure my people survive, I had to find myself printing money. (...) Then the IMF asked the U.S. to please print money. I began to see the whole world now in a mode of practicing what they have been saying I should not.

Would you do anything differently if you had the last five years to do over again?
(...) I would also deal differently with the critics of our land-reform programs, and invest more in educating them. We were outwitted in the propaganda war. We didn't go out there to explain to the world how our war of liberation came about in the first place.


In November you shut down Zimbabwe's stock exchange. Will you open it again?
The stockbrokers were creating a money supply that wasn't there. I printed Z$1.5 quadrillion, but the exchange was operating with Z$100 sextillion. So I said, "Who is doing my job?" Unless there is more discipline and honor, the exchange will stay closed. I can't be bothered. I don't know when it'll open. It's a free market, a business which must be allowed to succeed or fail.


So will 2009 be a year of improvement or disaster?
It's got to be a good year. What keeps me bright and looking forward to every day is that it can't be any worse. And those who have studied the history of economies know that we are down, but that the only thing that can happen is we will move up. That is a certainty.

Den Hinweis auf das Interview verdanke ich Marginal Revolution, dem Blog von Tyler Cowen. Cowen ist Professor für Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der George Manson Universität in Faifax, Virginia.