My sister sent the following story to me. Without the permission of the anonymous author, I provide it to you, as well …
Once upon a time, a man appeared in a village and announced to the residents that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, knowing the forest was chock-full of monkeys, went into the woods and began snatching them up.
The man bought tens of thousands of monkeys from them at the agreed upon $10 price but, as the supply started to diminish and it became more difficult to catch the monkeys, the villagers lost interest. Seeing this, the man decided to up his price to $50 per monkey.
With increased vigor, the villagers set out anew, collecting monkeys and selling them to the man for $50. Tens of thousands of monkeys were sold to the man at the new, higher price but, once again, as the supply of monkeys grew even smaller, the villagers gave up and went back to their farm chores.
The man raised the price yet again to $100, which caused a renewed effort to catch every monkey the eye could see. Monkeys became so scarce, it was virtually impossible to find a monkey, let alone catch one!
The man gathered all of the villagers together and told them he had to go to the city on business. While he was away, he would leave his assistant in charge and raise his per monkey price to a whopping $500!
After the man had departed, the assistant looked at the thousands upon thousands of cages of monkeys. He told the villagers that he would make a deal with them. He would sell them the monkeys that had already been caught for only $100 and, when his boss returned, they could sell him the monkeys for $500 and they could all turn a tidy profit.
The villagers rounded up all of their savings and greedily handed it over to the assistant in exchange for the bargain-priced monkeys, at a gross sum of 800 billion dollars …..
….. They never saw the man or his assistant again but, instead, only lots and lots of monkeys.
…..
Maybe now you have a little better understanding of how our government bailout system works!
Political Republican Opinion Quote of the Day: “Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” – H.L. Menken
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