Two Cow Capitalism

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

A FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. The cows go on strike to keep out American hormone-fed milk and launch a stampede through a McDonalds franchise at Euro-Disney. The French Cow Liberation Front hacks into the Cheddar website with images of Roquefort and WAV files declaring "Vive la France!"

A JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them Worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN EXTROPIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You read their DNA and figure out a way to create lean beef directly in a vat. You upload your cows. You debate endlessly on what to do with the originals cows, which are still alive and well, and are demanding bovine rights.

A BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.You count them again and learn you have 12 cows.You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION So, there are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

A POLISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Each one is worried that the other one might get a better milk output, so she keeps kicking the other one's milk pail. All milk goes to waste. And then the farmer asks them to screw in lightbulbs, 'cause he doesn't know how.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have one cow that swam ashore. You can't be certain that it is not infected with plague, so you place it in a razor-wire-fenced detention center. Another cow swims ashore but you are starting to suspect that these are not cows but rabbits, so you send it to a distant Pacific island. The number of cows (or possibly rabbits) arriving at shore drops drastically and your board gets reappointed with a bonus.

A SENEGALESE CORPORATION You have 5 cows, they're healthy and produce x amounts of milk/month. Soon there are 10 cows, then 20, then 30. When the number reaches 40, suddenly 38 cows literally disappear. Some Senegalese breeders accuse Mauritanians. The Mauritanians say they're innocent. Some fight starts, and someone dies. The story gets told and retold by the press. People's fears and angers are being played with. A few hundreds Mauritanians get slaughtered in broad daylight, their shops and businesses are vandalized & burned. State of emergency is declared in Senegal. In the meantime, everybody forgets about the cows.

A SWEDISH CORPORATION You have two cows, so you demand government support for struggling small farmers. While struggling against all the other small farmers for the government support (arguing that not only is your company providing at least two jobs for cows in a rural area, but also that since they are female you are also promoting equality) you don't have the time to get the massive EU grant for corporations with two cows.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead. The other sues sheepherders, claiming that the immigrant Belgian Sheep are carrying Mad Cow Disease (even though no sheep have ever caught it) and that they should be detained and destroyed by a Secret Dairy Tribunal set up by the FDA.

CANADIAN CORPORATION #1 You have two cows. Your dairy operation is productive, and you sell 80% of the milk to the US market. The American government decides that you are taking advantage of federal subsidies to dump milk on the market below cost, and slaps you with 25% "countervailing" duties, to protect the interests of the above-mentioned American Corporation. Angered and enraged in typical polite Canadian fashion, you cheer on the Canadian hockey team to pound the USA team 5-2 and win Olympic gold. You let out a cheer, wave the Maple Leaf a bit, then apologize for the outburst and get back to milking your cows.

CANADIAN CORPORATION #2 You have two cows, but only need the milk from one. So you sell one cow to an American company, who markets its product as being "pure Canadian milk." That American corporation prospers thanks to its "pure Canadian" marketing campaign. Meanwhile, you continue to sell the milk from your one cow at the same price in the same way. Canadian media finds out about the original "cow to America" transaction and creates a major story throughout Canada about how the big, greedy, successful American corporations prey on the ma and pa corporations North of the border. Influenced by the media, you file an unsuccessful lawsuit towards the American corporation. Upon the failure of the lawsuit, the Canadian media once again complains about the big, greedy American corporations.Three months later, you decide you don't like the cow farming business anyhow, so you sell your remaining cow to the same American corporation that bought the first cow, and go into the ping-pong ball manufacturing business.

COWS.COM You own two cows, so you send a business plan to 20 venture capital firms about how you can make money by giving away milk and selling ad space on the cartons. As the venture capital runs out, you issue an IPO based on your projections that your research team will develop new milking technology any day now. When your milking engineers tell you that they can't get any more milk from a cow by working 60-hour weeks, you offer them more stock options if they'll work 80-hour weeks solving the problem. The good engineers, who might actually have solved the problem, all work until their options vest, then retire, leaving you with junior engineers whose options all become wallpaper in another year when the company collapses and liquidates all its cows to a traditional dairy farm started by one of the old engineers.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull... you now have enough cash to buy cow shredders.

B.C. HYDRO A Corporate Accountant has 2 cows. One he calls Capital, the other OMA (Operations, Maintenance & Admin). He doesn't feed OMA very much, so she gets sick and almost dies. He decides to throw her a few scraps from Capital's trough until the new fiscal. She limps along but won't give any milk, meanwhile Capital is so full she can't eat anymore. The accountant decides to lay off the worker that feeds OMA as it must be his fault... he saves the wages for himself. OMA dies 2 days later, so he puts Capital into service (OMA's stall) and expects things to change now that he has a new healthy cow. He fills out the required CRA Process form and orders a new Capital cow, but the new OMA is too weak to mate... the accountant decides to reorganize and buy more bulls... that will surely produce more milk!

 

Two Cow Politics World Ideologies Explained by Reference to Cows

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: Your cows are cared for by former chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the rules say you should need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need." Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You take care of them but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

PERESTROIKA: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow which was a gift from your government.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

CAPITALISM #1: You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

CAPITALISM #2: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price, or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

OLYMPICS-ISM: You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state-of-the-art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and saw its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million-dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.

LIMBAUGHISM: You used to have two cows. They may be dead; you don't know, because you can't smell them through the stench rising off your unwashed, 1,500-pound bulk. It's been six years since you could fit into the shower. You blame the entire situation on an evil government conspiracy, and click the remote to another talk show.

X-FILES-ISM: Your two cows turn out to be the government. They milk YOU. You are saved by two generic bimbos, a female and a male with blow-dried hair, after (1) a car chase, involving UFOs, (2) a gunfight, and (3) a seance. The aliens get the advertising revenue after the Nielsens rise.