Monkey Business

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, knowing there were many monkeys, went 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 then announced that he would buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the villagers efforts and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished 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.
The assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that my boss has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when my boss returns, you can sell them to him for $50."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!



Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works !!!

It doesn't get much clearer than this....


Now imagine transactions involving millions of monkeys, with villagers borrowing money at high interest to the point of risking all they owned and creating huge debt for their children and grandchildren, and you will have a better understanding of why the stock market losses are so devastating.

The Book of Negroes

I finished The Book of Negroes two days ago. It is a very good read, all about slavery and man's inhumanity to man, as you might expect. But what was especially interesting to me was the emphasis on Black Loyalists and how they were treated by the Brits. The only flaw that I noticed, and felt quite keenly, was that all whites are portrayed as awful human beings while all blacks are not--just some of the blacks are, and most of those have excuses made for them--they had to do what they did to survive. All whites are portrayed as weak or evil or pathetic. Even the abolitionists are described unfavorably. So that put me off a bit. Otherwise it is a fascinating work of historical fiction, obviously quite well-researched by the author.

The CBC has a good interview with the author, Lawrence Hill, here, in which he discusses various aspects of his book and how it relates to Canadian history.

Martin Luther King Jr.: "I Have A Dream"

Remembering Dr. King today, the holiday commemorating his birthday.



August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial

Winter Poem

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WINTER POEM

It's winter in Northern Ontario
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.

Oh, how I love Northern Ontario
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Northern Ontario
I'm frozen to the freakin' ground!

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Poor Frosty

An oldie but goodie, this makes me smile every time I see it. (Click to enlarge)