IS OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY HARDLY ENOUGH?

A couple of days ago, I had blogged on the subject of human greed for money – rather, the temptation to grow rich faster… via whatever short-cuts, including the latest one: Bitcoin mania. A restless young man said to me, the other day, “Sir, today, the so-called the ‘hard-earned’ money is hardly enough for us to buy a decent house in any suburbs of Mumbai… Leave alone meeting other expenses.”

I told the young man, that every generation had the same anxiety. “Even I had the same thought when I was your age,” I said, “but, along my way, I realized, that everything becomes expensive including the sale value of the goods and services we sell.”

My advice to the young man was, that he had to learn to increase the sale value of his potential and not succumb to the temptation of making some easy money. But, the ‘young blood’ would not buy my theory so easily, you see!

Last night, my bother forwarded to me a lovely story. I am sharing this story, here, with a few grammatical corrections… The story is timeless, and its moral is applicable to all spheres of human greed and weakness. Here it is:

A lot of monkeys lived near a village. One day, a merchant came to the village to buy these monkeys! He announced, that he would buy the monkeys @ $100 each.

The villagers thought, that this man was crazy! “How can somebody buy stray monkeys at $100 each?” they mocked in their minds. Still, some of them caught a few monkeys and gave them to the merchant and he gave $100 for each monkey.

This news spread like a wildfire and people caught many more monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

After a few days, the merchant announced, that he would buy monkeys @ 200 each. The greedy villagers ran around to catch the remaining monkeys… They sold them @ 200 each.

Some more days passed by… The merchant announced, that he would now buy monkeys @ 500 each!

The villagers started to lose sleep!  Only six or seven monkeys were left… The villagers quickly grabbed all of them and got 500 each…

All monkeys gone, the villagers were waiting anxiously for the next announcement.

The merchant came out with the announced, that he was going home for a week.  And, when he returned, he would buy monkeys @ 1000 each! He deputed his ‘trusted’ employee to take care of all the monkeys he had bought till he returned.

The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell at $1000 each.

Reading their minds, the employee told the villagers, that he was willing to sell some monkeys @ 700 each, secretly. This news spread like fire.  Since the merchant would buy a monkey @ 1000 each, there was a profit of 300 on each monkey!

The next day, the villagers queued up near the monkey cage. The employee sold all the monkeys at 700 each.  The rich bought monkeys in big lots…  The poor borrowed money from money lenders and also bought monkeys!

The villagers guarded their monkeys and waited for the merchant to return… But, he did not come!

Then, they ran to the employee… But, he, too, had already gone!

It was too late, by the time the villagers  realized, that they were hoodwinked to buy the useless stray monkeys @ 700 each… and lose it all!

The Bitcoin will be the next monkey business!!!

Monkeys are our forefathers, you see, Therefore, the Monkey business – like Bitcoin – is nothing unusual. Our monkey-connection will always be there till the end of this world!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Internet