Forum Post: Donkey Market

A well-dressed stranger arrived one day to a peaceful, quiet and content village. Standing in the middle of the village, he announced that he was buying donkeys, $100 a head. Of course, the villagers needed their donkeys. They helped them cultivate the soil, produce food and live a modest, yet decent life. Nonetheless, to some, the price seemed attractive. The amount of $100 was a lot for them. And so, they sold their donkeys.

The next day the stranger came back. This time, he was offering $150 per donkey. Once again, some villages were tempted and sold their animals.

The good stranger returned to the village for the third day and offered $200. The story repeated even the next day when the very last villagers sold their donkeys for $250 each.

A few days later, the good man showed up again -- this time offering $500 per donkey! You can imagine the people's disappointment when nobody had any donkeys left to sell.

But the story is not over yet! A new stranger arrived the very next day, selling donkeys for $400 a piece! The villagers saw an opportunity for great profit. They thought they would buy his donkeys at a cost of $400 each and then sell each one for $500, making a profit of $100 every time. But nobody had this kind of money. They rushed to the bank and asked for loans. Now, everybody had their own donkey again, except that this time a donkey was worth five times more!

But sadly, there were no buyers who would buy these expensive donkeys. The villagers could not repay their loans and the banker was on the brink of bankruptcy. In order to avoid it, he seized all the donkeys from the villagers. Still, by doing so, he got back only part of the loans and his collapse was imminent. He turned for help to the village mayor. After all, his bank managed important business for the township and the banker was also the town councilor.

The mayor lent the banker the money from the town's treasury. But the debt kept growing. The mayor then raised the taxes which the villagers could not pay.

When the budget ran out, the mayor turned to friends in other townships. To his surprise, all of them were in the same situation! The exact same story took place everywhere!

So all the mayors agreed to make some radical reforms. They began to save in all areas, cutting budgets for schools, kindergartens, pensions, healthcare... When even this was not enough, it was necessary to raise the taxes.

Through public media, the mayors quickly started to condemn this immoral story and the fraudsters who were already peacefully enjoying their hard-earned holidays. But the fraudsters showed a great deal of understanding for the crisis. From their luxurious villas on the Bahamas, they informed the mayors that they will support their election campaigns!

The lesson of this story? There is none, because in the donkey market, there will always be plenty of fools, well-dressed gentlemen and greed for everybody.