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"In God We Don't Trust" - Zambia's 'Day Of Prayer' To Boost Currency Fails

Tyler Durden's picture




 

The Zambia Kwacha, down over 45% year-to-date against the dollar, is the world's worst currency. Last week, in a desperate bid to end the pain, President Edgar Lungu closed all bars and clubs, cancelled all sports and entertainment and demanded his people to pray, on a national day of devotion and fasting, as "hope seems to have deserted the minds of the people.. as anxiety and distress prevail throughout the land." Given the continued drop in both Copper and the Kwacha... god did not answer their prayers.

"God save the kwacha."

That’s what Zambian President Edgar Lungu wants his people to pray for on a national day of devotion and fasting on Sunday to reverse a decline in the world’s worst currency and fix a litany of problems from plunging copper prices to electricity shortages. As Bloomberg reported:

All bars, nightclubs and entertainment venues have been instructed by the government to shut on the day, while the Football Association of Zambia has canceled domestic games. Church leaders are rallying their members to heed the president’s call in a nation where more than 80 percent of the 15 million population are Christian.

 

“These days are like the last days,” Gordon Chanda, a driver for a law firm, said as he sipped a Mosi beer at Sylvia’s Comfort bar, taking cover from a heat wave that hit the capital, Lusaka, this week. “We need more prayers.”

 

Lungu, 58, is seeking divine intervention to help an economy in crisis as government efforts fail to halt the kwacha’s 45 percent slump against the dollar this year, the most of 155 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Zambia’s woes began with the slide in copper prices last year and has worsened in 2015 as falling water levels at hydropower plants triggered the most severe electricity shortage on record, hobbling businesses.

 

“Anxiety and distress prevail throughout the land,” Lungu said last month when he proclaimed the day of prayer and fasting. “Indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of the people. It is almost as if the wise counsel of the learned among us are not a match to the crisis before us.”

It did not work.

 

Copper prices have dropped more than 20 percent in the past year, prompting companies such as Glencore Plc to consider shutting mines and fire thousands of workers. Zambia is Africa’s second-largest producer of the metal, which accounts for 70 percent of export income. The slump in the industry will curb economic growth to a 17-year low of 3.4 percent in 2015, according to estimates from Barclays Plc.

Zambians have been forced to endure power cuts of as long as 14 hours a day in Lusaka as drought caused water levels to drop at Lake Kariba hydropower plants, which supply the nation with almost half of its electricity. Dry weather has also caused a 22 percent slump in production this year of corn, the staple food, boosting inflation.

 

“The depreciation of the kwacha against the dollar has resulted in prices escalating by 30 percent to 100 percent,” Imakando said in a statement on the church’s website. “Efforts by government to reverse the situation have not yielded any fruit. The impending increase on fuel will cause yet another price escalation, which will further complicate matters. What we need is divine intervention!”

From faith in the omnipotence of central bankers to faith in God, it seems nothing can save us from the debt-saturated end of days that looms.

“No matter how many prayers you make it doesn’t change the fact that you have a fiscal deficit and you’re not doing anything to reduce that fiscal deficit,” Trevor Simumba, managing director at Sub-Saharan Consulting Group Zambia, a business advisory firm, said by phone from Lusaka. “We know God can do miracles, but He cannot change things that are facts on the ground.”
 

 

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Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:49 | 6686046 El Oregonian
El Oregonian's picture

Do not put your trust in fiat; nor put your trust in things man-made.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:50 | 6686057 Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day's picture

They should make a donation to the 700 club...that'll work

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:58 | 6686083 knukles
knukles's picture

Or all hold hands and sing Kumbaya

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:00 | 6686096 wisebastard
wisebastard's picture

I put my head up my ass and pretend everything is okay

Tue, 10/20/2015 - 07:19 | 6688652 Weisbrot
Weisbrot's picture

1 day of prayer will not reverse decades of bad planning, misappropriations (stealing), and general scum baggery from those at the top.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:55 | 6686065 roisaber
roisaber's picture

Just another data point to slip into the deposition. Doctrinal religion is just another arm of the national security state, whether Christian or Jewish or Islamic. When you believe stuff in a book it's easy to convince the ignorant that the book really means what you want the people to believe it means. Buddhism and Taoism focus on development of character. Nobody with a hint of spiritual discernment would fall for a scheme like this for a single instant. Meanwhile, Abrahamic religions focus on externalization; they train the worship of the OTHER, making it easy to tell peope to put aside their common sense and spiritual faculty and just believe what you say as representative of this outside thing demanding your devotion.

Christianity, Islam, Judaism - the original brainwashing formulae of the NWO.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:52 | 6686066 world_debt_slave
world_debt_slave's picture

don't put your trust in man, period

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:59 | 6686091 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

or "the man".

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:53 | 6686068 Mark Mywords
Mark Mywords's picture

“We know God can do miracles, but He cannot change things that are facts on the ground.”

Wait. I have a reply, but I'm busy contemplating and envisioning the leaps in and twists of logic required to not only make but believe that statement.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:10 | 6686141 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

Every day god publishes his SITREP. If it is true that he can't change certain things 'on the groung'...it'll be in that report.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:58 | 6686086 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

Next, Santa will deliver the economy for Christmas.......

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:04 | 6686087 Haole
Haole's picture

Praying to The Whore of Babylon itself, then kissing eachother's asses good-bye anyway.  Sounds like a strategy...

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 14:59 | 6686092 wisebastard
wisebastard's picture

maybe we can get the zerohedge readers to schedule a day where instead of praying for authentic ecnomics we go and hang the people running the place into the ground

 

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:00 | 6686093 yogibear
yogibear's picture

US dollar peaked for now. It's a fall from here. More QE/debt should make it fall faster. The Federal Reserve wants massive inflation.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:01 | 6686097 Nolde Huruska
Nolde Huruska's picture

They would do better to change the name of the country back to Northern Rhodesia and beg the English to take over administration of the country again.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:07 | 6686117 MrNoItAll
MrNoItAll's picture

Don't laugh.  Before it's all over with, we'll have fanatical religious ferver and praying for miracles in this country too.  And it will do about as much good as it is doing in Zambia, or less.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:07 | 6686129 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

hilarious....I have often noted that inflation is viewed by many as something akin to the weather...it just appears miraculously.

Of course most CBs know exactly how it happens...pressure to 'do more' from the political side Causes over-printing and (unless you are the reserve currency) prompt loss of value.

Either the Prez is out of the loop (doubtful) or he is working the ole 'mojo mojo' scam. Either way I find it funny (and sad....are they really as dumb as Americans in Zambia?)

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:33 | 6686253 knukles
knukles's picture

Foggy with a chance of modest price increases by evil capitalists

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:09 | 6686133 Lucky Leprachaun
Lucky Leprachaun's picture

Maybe they should have had two days prayer.  Clearly one wasn't enough.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:13 | 6686153 Talleyrand
Talleyrand's picture

I'm glad, and a little surprised, that "no motto" St Gaudens don't carry a premium. They're very nice coins.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:19 | 6686185 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Most of the praying was likely to involve the removal of Lungu, I would think.

Still didn't work, though!

 

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:20 | 6686186 Mr. Cynic
Mr. Cynic's picture

I can't resist the urge to say, "the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil."  But what the hell, let's pray for the money.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:36 | 6686263 brightdayfin
brightdayfin's picture

"In God We Trust" is their insider attempt at humor as most all court hearings are trust administration.

 

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:38 | 6686273 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

'More prayers'...lol yea sure....as Tyler Durden said 'If there is a god, he probably hates you.'

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:45 | 6686315 Kolchak
Kolchak's picture

Did it fail or will it take time for everyones fiat to mach Zambia's.....

 

oh and where's all the world war 3 will happen douche bags?????

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:53 | 6686361 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

'Wheres WW3'.....have you seen any news over the last few years?

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:56 | 6686376 silverer
silverer's picture

How's that go? "God helps those that help themselves"?  I think misinterpreted at times by the elites.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 16:07 | 6686444 cpnscarlet
cpnscarlet's picture

An objective reading of the Bible tells us that God can and will perform miracles on his timetable, not ours.

It also tells us that when the nation has gone "bad", don't expect anything good. The best you can hope for may be just escaping with your life and marching into slavery...for a season.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 17:14 | 6686649 Exalt
Exalt's picture

I love how that logic covers both sides of any eventuality with positions that miraculously coexist peacefully in your mind. If the Kwacha recovers, God works in mysterious ways! If it doesn't, it's because the Zambians have been naughty. What a crock of high octane premium blend bullshit. You shouldn't be able to peddle this stuff without humiliation at ever turn.

If God exists and that's the biggest if ever iffed, he probably hates the religious more than the his other creatures. If he even cares at all.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 17:03 | 6686681 Teh Finn
Teh Finn's picture

The bible also says that when a nation turns back to God, God is right and just to bless them.

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 20:01 | 6686777 SunRise
SunRise's picture

"From faith in the omnipotence of central bankers to faith in God, it seems nothing can save us from the debt-saturated end of days that looms."

  I'm somewhat surprised that the rock-solid, Naturally correct desires so often expressed here for justice, i.e. system collapse,  don't rather encourage more faith amongnst the sceptics, logically concluding in mass:  "See here!  God did answer your request to instantly take away the pain you've so non-virtuously labored to acquire!  You're arteries are full of wretched, green ink, so batton down your hatches Honey!  You have your answer from the ALL-Mighty!  NO!

 

 

Mon, 10/19/2015 - 19:58 | 6687454 BillGrossJr.
BillGrossJr.'s picture

Ghana tried the same shit with the cedi; prayer RARELY works in FX markets

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