[Avenger42]

The version I heard went something like this:

A man was tired of the local youths <doing negative behavior>, so he offered them a small amount of money ($2-3) when they'd <do negative behavior>.

The next week he came to them and told them "sorry, business was slow, all I can give you this week is $1/time." They weren't happy, but agreed.

The next week he went back and said "sorry, even slower, I can only afford $0.25/time now." The youths said "we're not doing this for $0.25!" and stopped <negative behavior> altogether.