“Papa,” little Sammy asks his father. “What is the stockmarket?”
“Oh, Sammy,” replies the father, “you are much too small to understand!”
“I am not too small! I want to know, now!” Sammy protested.
“Ach, wait a few years, then you will understand better.”
“Papa, I don’t want to start life poor, like you, selling second-hand clothes. So… I want to know!” Sammy insisted.
“Alright,” the father gave in. “It’s like this. You buy two chickens. The two chickens lay eggs. So, next year you have thirty chickens. The thirty chickens, they all lay eggs too. The chickens lay eggs, the eggs turn into chickens. So, you end up having thousands of chickens. You see, this is the stockmarket. You understand, Sammy?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“And then, one day, the sky opens up biiiggggg. And it rains, it rains like in the days of Noah! The floods, they come and they take the chickens with them and wash away all the chickens until they drown and you have only two or three chickens left! You understand?”
“Oh, yes, Papa.”
“You see, this is the stockmarket. You should have bought DUCKS!”
