Business
Monkey Business On Wall Street
October 12, 2008 
The following is one of those e-mails that gets forwarded all over the place, but somehow it makes sense in these troubled times. So, because we don’t have much else to offer, we chance this bit of economics. The GUARDIAN just happened to be outside the NYSE as congress was passing the the bailout bill. The photo was made last Tuesday.
NYSE as Congress passed the Bailout Bill.
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went into the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 for 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 small that it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
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 $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.
They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Now you have a better understanding of how Wall Street works.
THAT’S WHY WE ARE IN THIS MESS & WHY WE ARE HOLDING MONKEYS WORTH NOTHING & THE GUYS ON WALL STREET HAVE TAKEN OUR MONEY AND GONE ON VACATION. WHAT DOES THE GOVERNMENT DO?
THEY IN TURN GIVE THE MONEY THE VILLAGERS HAVE ENTRUSTED TO THEM TO THE SAME MEN WHO SOLD US THE MONKEYS BEFORE THEY DECAMPED. THAT’ S WHY IT WOULD NOT GET BETTER UNTIL ANOTHER SET OF GUYS COME AROUND AND START BUYING MONKEYS ONCE AGAIN WITH OUR MONEY THAT THE GOVERNMENT GAVE THEM. THIS CONTINUES OVER AND OVER AGAIN AS THE VILLAGES ARE TOO STUPID TO REALIZE WHAT IS HAPPENING. EITHER THEY ARE HOLDING AND FEEDING THE THE MONKEYS OR SELLING THE SAME MONKEYS AT A LOSS.
To insure more advertising-free Boise Guardian news, please consider financial support.
Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Oct 12, 2008, 6:10 pm
Can we say ‘Congress’?….yep
Oct 12, 2008, 6:44 pm
It used to be that lenders were very conservative and only gave out loans based on the trustworthiness of the borrower. If the local banker knew that Farmer Brown had a good work ethic and took good care of his yard, animals, and crops, the loan was extended to him.
Then some politician came along and changed the American Dream from being “hardwork + sacrfice = success”, to “everyone is entitled to homeownership”. The government forced lenders to extend loans to the less trustworthy.
Banks were nervous to do so, but soon enough they were rolling in the dough and they got carried away with all kinds of financing programs. Real estate investment seems like the best get-rich scheme in history. Housing and development boomed. All kinds of corruption abounds as lending and real estate appraisal rules are ignored.
The untrustworthy start abusing their credit. After just a few short years the untrustworthy cannot pay their bills, the lenders collapse, the housing industry tanks, now even the credit-worthy are struggling.
The government steps in to save the lenders and the untrustworthy. The credit-worthy are forced into a deeper struggle as they are the ones paying for everyone else’s mistakes. A big chunk of free market rights are taken from the people in the name of regulation to protect the lenders and untrustworthy from themselves. Socialism is the new direction for the country and we all sing the praises of our new leader Comrade Obama. His statue is erected in every town square.
Whatever happens, my hope is that in the future the government keeps its nose out of the market, that greedy idiots pay for their own mistakes, that lenders go back to their conservative lending principles and that Americans remember that financial wealth and material possessions are not the goal of our existence.
Oct 12, 2008, 9:13 pm
Roberto,
I was following you right up to “Comrade Obama” part.
Oct 12, 2008, 9:27 pm
Roberto–
It is LOGICAL to note the Republican president is the first to nationalize the mortgage companies, the banks, intrude on our privacy in the name of national security, and start a foreign war all in the name of preserving Democracy!
Oct 12, 2008, 9:52 pm
Mr. Logic, it is equally logical that the democratic candidate has no earthly capability of paying for all the programs he has pledged in order to get elected!
The result of all of this will certainly be a socialistic state.
I do not propose that the republicans are any better suited to solve our current problems. The solution, in my opinion, is actually quite simple. Any CEO that has run the company he (she) represents into the ground and then taken the “sweet parachute” to leave needs to be in Jail!! If the response is that what they have done is not illegal, then make it illegal! If the taste of this doesn’t suit your palate, then simply shoot them! Problem solved! And with your commitment to logical thought, I am sure you will agree.
Oct 12, 2008, 10:29 pm
To make sense of the truly bizarre financial stuff going on, I strongly recommend everyone listen to the most recent This American Life podcast as well as NPR’s Planet Money podcast. Both have helped clear things up for me.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
EDITOR NOTE–
We heard the THIS AMERICAN LIFE broadcast and it is indeed well done journalism.
Oct 12, 2008, 10:31 pm
Cyclops–
Your solution certainly sounds LOGICAL I must admit. But let’s leave off the shooting for now at least.
Oct 13, 2008, 6:48 am
Roberto thanks I needed a good laugh. Comrade Obama gee it gets better and better. From years past I remember an election where the word War monger was used and it cost him the election. When we don’t understand or educate ourselves we fall back on words.
Oct 13, 2008, 8:52 am
Mr. Logic,
Your correction is understood and well-received. I completely disapprove of W’s bail-out as well as Comrade McCain’s nationalization plans for the mortgage industry. I fancy myself a true conservative, which McCain is not, so perhaps for the first time I’ll have to study in depth the platforms of those fringe parties, even though they’ve got a snow balls chance of winning.
Oct 13, 2008, 11:47 am
Long ago the stock market reflected the value of companies. Today it is a measure of the confidence in the economy, and is hugely effected by government intervention and wildly swinging commodity prices. Short term thinking in the stock market is no better than a drunken night in the gambling halls of Las Vegas. Long term thinking leads to questions of our real national debt, which some now put at over $2,000,000 for every man, woman and child due to the addition of the ‘derivative bomb’ that just went off. Energy prices are going to kill most of the companies offered by the markets as the global peaking of oil production ravages industrial civilization.
Oct 13, 2008, 12:34 pm
I agree with Tom A. Oil and Wall Street go up and down on news of a hurricanes. The difference – oil and fuel supply can be directly affected by hurricanes. Wall Street does trade too much on the short term.
Oct 15, 2008, 12:30 pm
Isn’t it interesting that the gun nuts think everything can be solved with a bullet. I think Mussolini would have fared much better had he not embraced the bullet solution for everything. He might have ended up in a jail cell instead of hanging upside down in a tree.
Oct 21, 2008, 5:11 pm
Why didn’t I borrow a bunch of money at 5% and invest in stocks and make 10%? I am stupid.