And you thought the U.S. economy is bad...

I found a 500 billion dinar note today at a street vendor.

500 billion = 5 with 11 zeros = 500,000,000,000.

It is the largest banknote ever printed, I think, except for Zimbabwe’s currency, which is currently being issued in the trillions.

The 500 billion note was issued in December 23, 1993. That morning, it was worth about $6. By that evening, the value had dropped to nearly $3. Yugoslavia was suffering from astronomical hyperinflation – the inflation rate was something like 313 million percent per month at its peak (roughly 3% per hour). The dinar had been already revalued 4 times and on January 1, 1994, it was revalued at one billion dinars to one. I can only understand economics with extreme examples and this makes sense to me, so I hope you can all understand it.

I paid the guy 380 dinars (about $6.50) for it – the most the note has ever been worth.