KAMAU appeared in a market at Karatina and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for 20,000/- each. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought many of them at 20,000/- and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at 30,000/- 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 40,000/- each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at 100,000/-! However, since he had to come to Nairobi 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 80,000/- and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for 100,000/- each. The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man or his assistant, only monkeys everywhere! That’s how stock markets. Quail farming and pyramid schemes works.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 16:00:00 +0000