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This is a story about acorns. Once upon a time in Middle-Western Europe a man passed by a village that had its village green bordered with many tall oaks. Needing many acorns for his business, the man saw an opportunity and spread the news around that he would buy all available acorns for 1 euro per kg. A fair price and after a day he left, his two carriages filled up with acorns and the villagers with a decent amount of cash.

The next week he was back, now offering 2 euros per kg. Of course, the easy to find acorns were already gone, so the villagers and their kids went all around the village green to dig out more acorns. Sure enough, the man left the next morning with one full carriage and the  lucky villagers with plenty of more cash.

Ten days later the man returned again, spreading the news he was out of acorns and was willing to pay 5 euro per kg this time. The villagers, hearing this, stopped working on their fields and the kids staid out of school just to rush around for more hard to find acorns. After a hard day roaming around in the woods, they returned with a few bags of acorns and were elated to receive a 5 euro bill for every kg. Not even half a carriage but the price made up for it.

As they expected the man to be back soon with even a better offer, the villagers stopped working and schooling altogether and tried to hoard as much acorns as they could in advance. Of course those were almost all gone. The most clever ones walked to neighboring villages where they bought all the acorns they could get for 5 euro, but that weren't that many since apparently our acorn-buying man had passed there too.

Greedy and desperate, the villagers now started buying and selling acorns amongst themselves and prices went up a lot. No work was done any more except searching for acorns in all possible forgotten places and the school had to close down. They expected the man to be back 10 days later with an offer of 10 euro per kg or more as apparently, he badly needed more and more acorns all the time.

But just two days later another man happened to pass by the village. He had four carriages full of acorns with him and announced he would sell all those for 15 euro per kg if there were any buyers. If not, he would go to the next village.
The news spread like a wildfire and soon enough the villagers turned up with heaps of cash as they had withdrawn all their savings, pawned their wives' jewelry and their house. No way they would let go a lifetime opportunity like that, and after just two hours the four carriages were totally sold out.

Needles to say that the first man came never back. It might come as a surprise but this story is also not about acorns. It's about the stock exchange, the banks and Wall Street. Just think how you all have been fooled, peasants 

Thank you for your attention. 

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.

"One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me," said one boy.

Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery.

He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me."

He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off. Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane,hobbling along.

"Come here quick," said the boy, "you won't believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls."

The man said, "Beat it kid, can't you see it's hard for me to walk." When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me..."

The old man whispered, "Boy, you've been tellin' the truth.

Let's see if we can see the Lord." Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything.

The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.

At last they heard, "One for you, one for me. That's all.

Now let's go get those nuts by the fence and we'll be done."

They say the old man made it back to town a full 5 minutes ahead of the boy on the bike.


(this has nothing to do with the stupid world markets, ponzi schemes, gold and silver prices (but that's a good one), the housing market and ridiculous failed loans in the US, or the whole European Union financial dilemma. Greece, Italy or Slovania. It's just a cute story... about people hearing something and misunderstand what it really means.)

Shouldn't the acorn story be about Tulips or something? LOL

Thanks for the heart, Maria. By the way, you can read this story backwards and then it's about stock photography. When the acorns are finally just 1 cent, we arrived in the microstock stage and the world is full of acorns.