Who Needs Another Stimulus Check; How 'bout the Hamper Plan?

Zimbabwe's answer to 2,200,000% inflation -- Give out hampers:

Zimbabwe's government is to distribute cheap food hampers to help people deal with inflation of 2,200,000%.

Basic products to last a family of six for a month will cost Z$100bn, the current cost of a loaf of bread, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.

It was launched by President Robert Mugabe who was re-elected last month in a controversial one-man race.[...]

Zimbabweans are suffering chronic shortages of meat, maize, fuel and other basic commodities and most shops are empty because of a price-control policy implemented by the government a year ago.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Zimbabwe's annual rate of inflation has surged to 2,200,000%.

The food hampers are intended to reach all households to be distributed at local centres and at a village level by chiefs and headmen, the Herald reports.

Now here's the kicker of this BBC article:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step," central bank governor Gideon Gono said at the launch of the hamper scheme.

"So this is but one step that we have taken as we implement strategies to improve the lives of our people."

Whoa...Central bank governor? They have a central bank in Zimbabwe? Is this "central bank" pretty much just a glorified Kinkos? Minus the apathetic emo employees of course. Because outside of "print more money and larger bills" I don't think the country has much of a monetary policy. Don't get me wrong, Bernake hasn't given us any quotes about our stimulus plan like, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step", so I'm not saying that Gideon is completely pointless, I was just surprised to learn that they had something that they called a central bank.

Full story here.

Stagflation, Anyone?

Bush today again pushed his ethanol plan as a fix to the nation's fuel dependency.

The Bush administration today announced the first-ever national goals for increasing use of alternative fuels in cars and trucks, but several environmental groups and an influential member of Congress said the plan could do more harm than good in efforts to curb global warming because the package of new fuels includes liquid coal....

The administration's alternative fuel plan would require that at least 7.5 billion gallons of such fuels be blended into the nation's use of fuel for cars and trucks by 2012, and at least 35 billion gallons by 2017 -- a nearly five-fold increase in five years. This year, the target is to reach roughly 4.7 billion gallons of alternative fuel, which is largely ethanol, produced mainly from corn, and biodiesel, made largely with vegetable oil.

Folks of a certain age might remember the stagflation which dominated the US economy in the 1970s. It was a gloomy time when energy prices (and gasoline lines) dominated the news; when whole industries slumped at the same time, and when job losses and price hikes seemed to travel in tandem.