....for which we can probably thank Chuck Schumer.

How The Wall Street Bail Out Will Work

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the
villagers
that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the
forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the
villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy
monkeys
at $20 each. 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 $25 each and the supply of monkeys
became
so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However,
since
he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his
behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers:
"Look at
all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I
will
sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can
sell
them to him for $50 each."
The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for
700 billion dollars.
They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of
monkeys!

--
John