Here's how the currency black market works: Dealers get local currency illegally through the back door of the reserve bank or from tellers who will provide cash in return for a payoff. They sell it at a profit to locals with foreign currency, gotten by trading in neighboring countries or through remittances from Zimbabwe's huge diaspora.
On the first floor of a building downtown, the black market currency-dealing offices attract some of the city's best and brightest young graduates.
One office looks like something out of a Chicago gangster movie. The boss, impeccably dressed, sits behind a desk. On his right, in a white cap and suit, sits one of the dealers. A Mugabe election poster is plastered on the wall. On a cabinet is a framed $10 note -- which generates as much nostalgia around here as a much-loved but extinct fluffy mammal.
"That was real money," cracks the boss.
Everyone laughs, though the joke is not funny.
Tendei, 34, one of the black market dealers, gave up a good job as sales manager of a large Western company in 2003 because the salary did not cover his commuting and other costs.
In recent weeks, until the German paper supply stopped, the government had accelerated its money printing, with fresh notes constantly seen on the streets.
"They were just printing money to pay all the militias," Tendei said. "Inflation is now out of control. Nobody can control it."
For most Zimbabweans, the economic crisis boils down to one thing: how to put food on the table. It's a difficult trick when you have no job, or if the bus fare costs more than your pay, and the prices in shops keep going up.
"Everyone is struggling to keep up with this mounting pressure, day by day," said John Robertson, an independent economist here. "It's a thing that gradually creeps up. Some people have already succumbed. Some factories have closed. More are likely to succumb as prices rise."
Another independent economist, Tony Hawkins, said Zimbabwe's economy was imploding so fast, some major factories were reporting that it would be a matter of weeks before they would be forced to shut down.
"The beer and Coke guys are saying they have only six to eight weeks before they will have to close," Hawkins said. "Some of the smaller banks are screaming. It's accelerating downhill. It's got its own momentum now. Just sit back and watch.
"Everything is imploding at the same time. You just get the sense that they can't hold on much longer."
Everyone at Fidelity Printers knows the money printing is propping up Mugabe, the staffer said. Despite the threat to their jobs, some secretly hope for breakdowns and paper shortages, he said.
"I'm happy about this crisis caused by the unavailability of paper," the staffer said. "Because maybe it might lead to a change of things in this country."
