In Zimbabwe, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $20.00 each. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $20.00, and as supply started to diminish, the villagers reduced their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $30.00. 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 $40.00 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it took so much effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $ 100.00! However, since he had to go to Jo'burg on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in this big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $80, and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $100.00 each." The villagers came together with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man or his assistant, only monkeys everywhere! You have just been given a free lecture on how the stock market works!!!