Saturday, July 25, 2009

Monkey Market

Once upon a time in a rural village, a man came from the city announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs 10.

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The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, left there odd jobs and went out to the forest and started catching monkeys.

The man bought thousands at Rs 10 a monkey, but as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts.

The man further announced that he would now buy at Rs 20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they left their jobs and started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people went back to farming and other daily wage jobs.

The offer rate was increased to Rs 25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs. 50!!!

However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs. 35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for Rs. 50.’

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

The next day the villagers woke up with all monkeys around them.

They never saw the man or his assistant ever again.

Just thousands of monkeys everywhere!

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