One day in the village there appeared a man wearing a tie. He stood in the village square and announced to the villagers that he would buy all the donkeys that they could sell to him for 100 euros each in cash.

The locals found it a bit odd, but the price was very good and those who agreed to sell returned home with the bag full and a smile.

The man with the tie returned back the next day and offered EUR 150 for each unsold ass, so most of the residents sold their animals. The next day he offered 300 Euros for those few animals that were still unsold freom the stubborn few who resisted.

After he realized that the village did not even have one donkey left, he announced to everyone that he would return after a week to buy any Donkey found for over 500 euros! And he left.

The next day he instructed his partner to take the herd of donkeys that had been purchased and sent ii into the same village with orders to sell them at a price of 400 euros each.

The people saw the opportunity to earn 100 euro next week, bought back their stock for 4 times the amount that they had sold, and in order to do so, had to seek a loan from the local bank.

As you can imagine, after the transaction the two entrepreneurs left for a holiday in a Caribbean tax haven, while the villagers were indebted, frustrated, and the donkeys in their possession were no longer worth anything.

Of course the farmers tried in vain sell their animals to cover their debts. Their value was net to nothing. The bank then seized the donkeys and hired them out to their former owners.

The banker, however, went to the mayor of the village and explained that unless he did not recover the funds that had lent out he too would go bust, and therefore called for immediate closure of the open credit he had with the municipality.

The mayor panicked and to avoid the unfolding catastrophe, instead of giving money to the villagers to meet their debts, gave the money to the banker, who incidentally was the Godafther of the local councilor.

Unfortunately the banker having regained his capital, did not however wipe of the residents debt, nor the debt of the municipality, which of course heading towards bankruptcy.

Seeing debts proliferate and hiked by interest rates, the mayor asked for help from neighboring municipalities. But they gave a negative answer, because as they said they had suffered the same problem with their own Donkeys !!...

The banker then gave the mayor a "disinterested" advice / directive to reduce the costs of the municipality: less money for schools, the hospital of the village, the municipal police, elimination of social programs, research, reducing funding for new infrastructure ... Increased retirement age, dismissed most employees of the hall, fell wages and increased taxes.

It was inevitable he said, but promised to these structural changes "to bring order to the functioning of the council, to put an end to wastage" and ... legitimize trade in donkeys.

The story starts to become interesting when word came that the two traders and the banker are cousins ??and live together on an island near the Bahamas, which was bought ... with their sweat. The family were called “Animal Financiers”, and with great bravery offered to finance the electoral campaign of mayors of villages in the region.

In any case the story is not over, because nobody knows what the farmers did afterwards.