Once there was and once there was not, a small, dusty African village where a trader man dressed in a smart business suit arrived on a mighty ship. The trader man 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 jungle, and started catching them.
The trader man bought thousands of monkeys at $10 and built a giant cage to hold them until the ship returned, but as the supply of monkeys started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. The trader man then further announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the monkey supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The trader man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 !
However, since the trader man had to go to the to the city for an important meeting, his assistant would do business on his behalf.
In the absence of the trader man, the assistant told the villagers. “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the Trader Man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he 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.
The villagers never saw the trader man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!
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