Bailout: Monkey Shakedown

Market Watch ^ | 10/21/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and 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 forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys 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 increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find 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 buy 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 already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man 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 for 700 billion dollars.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!

Now you have a better understanding of how the WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WILL WORK !!!!

[TigerLikesRooster]

From one of the comments attached at the end of the article.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[ClearCase_guy]

Somewhat related --

What I heard originally was that we were very close a colossal meltdown, and Congress had to approve an $850B bailout package -- ASAP!
It was approved, but stocks continued to slide and the financial crisis still loomed.
People began to be angry that they had approved this useless bailout so quickly.
Experts appeared and said, "These things take time! We haven't actually spent the $850B yet! Wait!"
Now I'm hearing that Congress needs to approve about $300B more -- ASAP!

Yeah, someone's making a monkey out of us.

[dblshot]

How to catch a primate(monkey): Tie a jar with a narrow neck to a form sate or tree. Put some fruit that monkeys want in the jar. When the monkey sticks his hand in the jar and grabs the fruit he finds that he can't get his hand out without letting go of the fruit. Smack the monkey with a big stick.

How to catch a subprimate mortgagee: Put a for sale sign on a house. Tell someone he deserves the house as a fruit of his labors. When the he puts his hand out give him some money. When the mortgagee finds out he has to give the money back he can't get out debt. Smack the taxpayer with a big “bailout”.