An old friend from India told me a parable he brought from his homeland. It's similar to this, except it backfires on the greedy guy.

There's a king who wants have very rich and flavorful soup, so he tells his chef that, for every drop of grease floating in his bowl, he will pay a coin. The greedy chef wants to maximize his pay, so he dumps a lot of oil into the soup. Of course, this results in a single oil slick across the entire top of the bowl, so the king pays him only a single coin.