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Opinion: Auto and bank bailouts explained so even a monkey can understand

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The news in recent days has been full of talk about the economic bailout plan being negotiated between the White House and Congress, specifically involving the troubled American automobile industry.

Although officials from both the outgoing Bush and incoming Obama administration are working together on the plans, you may have noticed that not everyone favors the it.

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Here’s one humorous explanation for how the various economic bailout plans will work. It’s bouncing back-and-forth across the country in an e-mail among political friends.

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 pay $20 for each monkey. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply of monkeys 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! Now you have a better understanding of how the bailout plan will work!

Hey, it’s Saturday. Enjoy the day!

-- Andrew Malcolm

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