Once upon a time, a man appeared in a village where he announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for ₹100 each. Full of excitement and greed, the villagers started catching them. The man bought 1000 monkeys at ₹100.

As the supply diminished, they became difficult to catch. The man now announced that he would pay ₹200 for each monkey. The villagers renewed their efforts and caught 1,000 more monkeys. As the supply diminished further the man raised the offer to buy each monkey for ₹300. Monkeys became so rare that it was difficult to even see a monkey, let alone catch it. But the villagers still managed to catch another 500.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at ₹500 and since he had to go to the city for some urgent work, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. The assistant told the villagers, “I will sell all these monkeys to you at ₹400 each and when my master comes back you can sell to him for ₹500”. The villagers, by now blinded by greed, used up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They neither saw the man nor does his assistant, ever again, only monkeys everywhere! The villagers now owned 2500 monkeys. They were paid ₹4.5 lacs to catch them and they bought them back for ₹10 lacs.

Source: quora.com