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...in honor of
yet another hopium-fueled stock market rally (via Capitalists@Work):
Once upon a
time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the
villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers,
seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and
started catching them.
The man bought
thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to
catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.
The man then
announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of
the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply
diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started
going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching.
The man
increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse
that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.
The man now
announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to
the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.
While the man
was away the assistant told the villagers, “Look at all these monkeys
in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each
and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50
each.”
The villagers
rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
They never saw
the man nor his assistant again, and once again
there were monkeys everywhere.
Now you have a
better understanding of how the stock market works.
(Image: source)
Michael J. Panzner
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