The Monkey Market
Once upon a time in a village, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs 10. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching
them..
The man bought thousands of them at Rs 10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy the monkeys at Rs20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.
The offer rate increased to Rs 25 and the supply of monkeys became so rare that it was an effort even to 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 buy them 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 it to him for Rs 50.
The villagers squeezed up all their savings and bought of all the monkeys. After that they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
…………
You think the poor villagers were taken for a ride. If so, so are all of us. By artificially creating an attractive demand-supply situation, the monkey merchant and his agent succeeded in creating an impression on the farmers of their acquiring extra ordinary profits. In the final tally only the merchant and his agent profited.
Welcome, dear friends, to the ‘Stock Market,’ the illusory bubble-world of artificially created ‘demand & supply,’ a ‘vanity fare.’ Man after all doesn’t much to be happy with.