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In Zimbabwe, even the trillionaires are struggling to make ends meet.

But that is about to end as the government begins a phasing out of the massively hyperinflated Zimbabwean dollar in favor of a multi-currency regime involving mainly a mix of U.S. dollars and South African rand that, in any case, has been the de facto norm since 2009.

In a bid to stabilize an off-the-rails economy, starting on Monday Zimbabwe's central bank will offer $5 U.S. for every 175 quadrillion (175,000 trillion) Zimbabwean dollars, according to an email send by the bank's governor, John Mangudya. The move, he wrote, has been "pending and long outstanding."

"We cannot have two legal currency systems. We need therefore to safeguard the integrity of the multiple-currency system or dollarization in Zimbabwe," Mangudya said.

i

Alex Mupondi, hangs one dollar notes on a drying line after washing them in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2010, shortly after Zimbabweans began trading in the American currency after the Zimbabwean dollar went into a hyperinflationary spiral. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Alex Mupondi, hangs one dollar notes on a drying line after washing them in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2010, shortly after Zimbabweans began trading in the American currency after the Zimbabwean dollar went into a hyperinflationary spiral.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The classic definition of inflation is "too much money chasing too few goods." With hyperinflation, the process gets locked in a death spiral. That's what happened in Zimbabwe when the government of President Robert Mugabe "started a campaign in 2000 of violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms to distribute to black subsistence growers, slashing exports of tobacco and other crops," according to Bloomberg.

The country plunged into a brutal and prolonged recession as its gross domestic product plummeted and inflation hit 500 billion percent.

According to the BBC: "The last bank note printed by Zimbabwe was for 100 billion Zimbabwean dollars, still not enough for a bus ticket."

In a situation reminiscent to what happened in Germany in the early 1920s, the BBC says "Hyper-inflation saw prices in shops change several times a day, severe shortages of basic goods and Zimbabweans taking their money to market in wheelbarrows."

Reuters columnist Edward Hadas adds: "Zimbabwe's mirage-quadrillionaires are witnesses to its monetary disaster. Harare is the new Weimar. Just as Germany created money to pay for reparations after World War One, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe used newly created cash to spend well beyond the government's means."

The process of "demonetizing" will begin June 15 and be complete by September 30. The Financial Times writes: "Within that window, the notes can be exchanged for US dollars. After that they'll be worthless — which isn't so different from their value now."

The BBC notes that the exchanges is likely to affect only those Zimbabweans with bank accounts, as presumably they are the only ones with enough of the old currency to make such an exchange practical.

inflation

Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe

William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was born in Ireland 150 years ago this week, and across the country, the Irish are celebrating with public readings and festivals.

But his presence has never left rural County Galway, in far western Ireland, where Yeats spent many years, far from the big cities. And in turn, its landscape and spirit infuses so much of his poetry.

So it may not be surprising that a passionate nun in Galway has turned an old one-room schoolhouse on a country road into a small museum to Yeats.

Lilacs and farmers' fields surround the squat stone building. Inside, Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy serves as the guardian of the local history.

Surrounded by books and photographs, Fahy looks like a historian or a teacher as much as a nun. In fact, she is all of these things.

The first time she walked into this building was 1942. She was 5 years old.

"My first introduction to Yeats' poetry was here in this room, where the only Yeats poem we learned was 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' which he wrote in his younger days, and which is beautiful," she says.

Even now, Fahy can recite the poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Fahy helped transform this one-room schoolhouse into the Kiltartan Gregory Museum, named for Lady Gregory, one of Yeats' patrons.

Local history is Fahy's passion, and that's one reason she is so devoted to Yeats. Many of his poems capture the paths and the people of this exact place.

"One of Yeats' most famous poems is 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.' Two of the best-known lines in that poem are, My country is Kiltartan Cross, / My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,'" Fahey says. "You are now standing at Kiltartan Cross."

i

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats.

Rich Preston/NPR

Fahy was too young to know Yeats personally. Her father and her uncle farmed nearby land in the early 1900s. Sometimes they'd give the poet rides into town on their horse-drawn cart.

Fahy says Yeats rarely thanked them, or even said hello.

"He was kind of in another world ... composing," she says. "That was one side of Yeats. I'm giving Yeats, warts and all."

Maybe if he were an ordinary person, she says, his poems would not have been so extraordinary.

"Yeats regarded poetry as a form of music. And so it is," she says.

Even now, after so many years and reading the poem so many times, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" still moves Fahy.

"I felt he was talking about my own people," she says.

i

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years.

Rich Preston/NPR

Nearby, there's a 15th-century stone tower called Thoor Ballylee, where Yeats lived for many years. It appears in many of his poems, such as "Coole Park and Ballylee" from 1931:

Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face

For 35 years, Brendan Flynn, a 72-year-old retired school principal, has been bringing students here to walk in Yeats' footsteps.

Different poems by Yeats have been meaningful to Flynn at different times — and they become more meaningful as the years go by, he says.

"It's like a great whiskey. They ripen with years, and they blossom and they bloom," Flynn says. "Take a poem like 'Sailing to Byzantium,' where he talks about aging: An aged man is but a paltry thing, /A tattered coat upon a stick, unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing. As you age, instead of complaining, celebrate every day."

i

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public.

Rich Preston/NPR

Inside Thoor Ballylee, Colm Farrell guides us up a narrow stone spiral staircase to Yeats' bedroom. Farrell is raising money to restore the stone structure and reopen it to the public. His ties are deep: He was born close to the tower, and his father and his grandfather worked there.

Farrell's grandfather knew Yeats personally. And echoing the words of Sister Fahy, Farrell says that around town, Yeats was seen as an eccentric.

"The children used to hide, and when they'd see him on the road they'd jump over the wall, and as he passed they could hear him mumbling," he says. "And obviously he was mumbling words of poetry and putting poetry together in his head."

Back in the stairwell, we climb up to the roof of the tower. There, with the Irish flag flapping above our heads and the river below, we can see 360 degrees — a landscape of rolling, green hills and farms.

It seems like the appropriate time for a bit of Yeats, so Farrell recites "To Be Carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee":

I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

Indeed, 150 years after the birth of William Butler Yeats, the characters — and his legacy — remain.

Poetry

Ireland

William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was born in Ireland 150 years ago this week, and across the country, the Irish are celebrating with public readings and festivals.

But his presence has never left rural County Galway, in far western Ireland, where Yeats spent many years, far from the big cities. And in turn, its landscape and spirit infuses so much of his poetry.

So it may not be surprising that a passionate nun in Galway has turned an old one-room schoolhouse on a country road into a small museum to Yeats.

Lilacs and farmers' fields surround the squat stone building. Inside, Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy serves as the guardian of the local history.

Surrounded by books and photographs, Fahy looks like a historian or a teacher as much as a nun. In fact, she is all of these things.

The first time she walked into this building was 1942. She was 5 years old.

"My first introduction to Yeats' poetry was here in this room, where the only Yeats poem we learned was 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' which he wrote in his younger days, and which is beautiful," she says.

Even now, Fahy can recite the poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Fahy helped transform this one-room schoolhouse into the Kiltartan Gregory Museum, named for Lady Gregory, one of Yeats' patrons.

Local history is Fahy's passion, and that's one reason she is so devoted to Yeats. Many of his poems capture the paths and the people of this exact place.

"One of Yeats' most famous poems is 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.' Two of the best-known lines in that poem are, My country is Kiltartan Cross, / My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,'" Fahey says. "You are now standing at Kiltartan Cross."

i

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats.

Rich Preston/NPR

Fahy was too young to know Yeats personally. Her father and her uncle farmed nearby land in the early 1900s. Sometimes they'd give the poet rides into town on their horse-drawn cart.

Fahy says Yeats rarely thanked them, or even said hello.

"He was kind of in another world ... composing," she says. "That was one side of Yeats. I'm giving Yeats, warts and all."

Maybe if he were an ordinary person, she says, his poems would not have been so extraordinary.

"Yeats regarded poetry as a form of music. And so it is," she says.

Even now, after so many years and reading the poem so many times, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" still moves Fahy.

"I felt he was talking about my own people," she says.

i

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years.

Rich Preston/NPR

Nearby, there's a 15th-century stone tower called Thoor Ballylee, where Yeats lived for many years. It appears in many of his poems, such as "Coole Park and Ballylee" from 1931:

Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face

For 35 years, Brendan Flynn, a 72-year-old retired school principal, has been bringing students here to walk in Yeats' footsteps.

Different poems by Yeats have been meaningful to Flynn at different times — and they become more meaningful as the years go by, he says.

"It's like a great whiskey. They ripen with years, and they blossom and they bloom," Flynn says. "Take a poem like 'Sailing to Byzantium,' where he talks about aging: An aged man is but a paltry thing, /A tattered coat upon a stick, unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing. As you age, instead of complaining, celebrate every day."

i

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public.

Rich Preston/NPR

Inside Thoor Ballylee, Colm Farrell guides us up a narrow stone spiral staircase to Yeats' bedroom. Farrell is raising money to restore the stone structure and reopen it to the public. His ties are deep: He was born close to the tower, and his father and his grandfather worked there.

Farrell's grandfather knew Yeats personally. And echoing the words of Sister Fahy, Farrell says that around town, Yeats was seen as an eccentric.

"The children used to hide, and when they'd see him on the road they'd jump over the wall, and as he passed they could hear him mumbling," he says. "And obviously he was mumbling words of poetry and putting poetry together in his head."

Back in the stairwell, we climb up to the roof of the tower. There, with the Irish flag flapping above our heads and the river below, we can see 360 degrees — a landscape of rolling, green hills and farms.

It seems like the appropriate time for a bit of Yeats, so Farrell recites "To Be Carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee":

I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

Indeed, 150 years after the birth of William Butler Yeats, the characters — and his legacy — remain.

Poetry

Ireland

Republicans are often seen as the party of business. So it's a little ironic that some of the most vocal opposition to the Export-Import Bank comes from conservative Republicans, such as Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.

"If we're ever going to get rid of all the corporate connectedness, all the corporate welfare, you've got to start with the most egregious one and the most obvious one and that's the Export-Import Bank," he says.

The Ex-Im Bank, as it's called, does several things. It was created during the Depression to help U.S. companies that wanted to sell more products overseas. It provides insurance to these companies to make sure they get paid when they sell products overseas.

Today, it also underwrites many billions of dollars in loans to U.S. and foreign companies.

But some members of Congress see the Ex-Im Bank as a bastion of corporate welfare, and they want to see it expire later this month.

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Richard Beranek is president of Miner Elastomer Products Corp., which makes manufacturing parts. He says without the Ex-Im Bank, the Illinois company wouldn't be able to export as much as it does.

"Would it put me out of business? It would not. Would it slow my business down? I think it would," he says.

But John Murphy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that, in many cases, U.S. companies have to have the backing of a big credit agency such as the Ex-Im Bank or they can't get foreign contracts.

"For instance, foreign infrastructure projects. If you want to bid most of the time you need to have Ex-Im support," Murphy says. "If it's a nuclear power plant project abroad, Ex-Im support is required and without it you can't even bid."

But the biggest thing the Ex-Im Bank does is guarantee loans to foreign companies so they can buy U.S.-made products.

For instance, foreign airlines that want to buy Boeing jets often do so with loans underwritten by the Ex-Im Bank. Murphy says a lot of countries now offer similar loan guarantees to help their businesses export more.

"So if the United States and our exporters don't have something similar, that's one knock against us," he says.

But to a lot of free-market conservatives, what the Ex-Im Bank does amounts to crony capitalism and they want Congress to let the bank's charter expire June 30.

Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University says the Ex-Im Bank distorts the economy. For example, she says loan guarantees for foreign airlines may be great for Boeing, but they're bad for U.S. airlines.

"Domestic airlines can't have access to subsidies to buy airplanes, but they have to compete with foreign companies like [Emirates and] Air India," she says.

And those airlines are getting a subsidy, thanks to the Ex-Im Bank.

De Rugy says supporters of the bank are vastly exaggerating its importance. She says some companies reap benefits from it, but she says most U.S. companies will do just fine without it.

"All of the companies that export, a vast majority do it without any help from the government and yet there are those selected few who got cheaper financing," she says.

Critics acknowledge that the Ex-Im Bank has a lot of support in Washington, and that it may well survive if Congress ever gets to vote on it.

But if Republicans who control Congress succeed in keeping it from a vote, its charter will expire at the end of the month.

That means it would be unable to guarantee any more loans, and its role in the economy would diminish over time.

Ex-Im Bank

Export-Import Bank

international trade