The Monkey Business

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere.

Once upon a time in a village overrun with monkeys, a man from Wall Street 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, but as the supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their efforts. 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, but the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch one. The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50 apiece! However, since he had to go to the city on business, his assistant would 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 pooled their savings, sold all their assets, and bought all the monkeys from the assistant. Once again there were monkeys everywhere, and the village was completely bankrupt. That night, the assistant left town, and they never saw the man nor his assistant again.