Daniel Fisher, Forbes Staff
I cover finance, the law, and how the two interact.
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Desmond Kwande/AFP/Getty Images
GDP per capita: $375 Inflation rate: 5%
At the height of its inflationary fever in 2008, the price of a loaf of bread soared from 200,000 Zimbabwean dollars to 1.6 trillion. Dictator Robert Mugabe’s policies of seizing productive grain farms and handing them to his political cronies has turned the nation from one of Africa’s biggest food exporters into an economic basket case, reliant on foreign aid to feed its people. A power-sharing arrangement between Mugabe and rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has led to some reforms and inflation has cooled since the government began settling transactions in U.S. dollars.