Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared who announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys in the forest, went out and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at $10 each. As supply started to diminishand villagers started to stop their efforts, he announced that now he would buy them at $20 each.
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 was increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it.
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each. However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of the man.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all the monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when my boss comes back, you can sell them to him for $50 each."
The villagers queued up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
After that, neither the assistant nor the businessman could be found anywhere but the monkeys were everywhere!
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