Cowonomics: Using 2 Cows to Explain Economics

• A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT:
  You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor. Then you covet it.

• A SOCIALIST:
  You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his.

• A DEMOCRAT:
  You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you. (At $100/seat)

• A REPUBLICAN:
  You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?

• A COMMUNIST:
  You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

• A FASCIST:
  You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage which ultimately blows up the cows.

• CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE:
  You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

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

• BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE:
  You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

• AN AMERIC AN CORPORATION:
  You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the 2 cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts that you have reduced your expenses. Your stock goes up.

• A FRENCH CORPORATION:
  You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch. Life is good.

• 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. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

• A GERMAN CORPORATION:
  You have two cows. You reengineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

• AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:
  You have two cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.

• A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:
  You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You have some more vodka. 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. You produce your 10th, 5 year plan in the last 3 months. The Mafia shows up and takes over how ever many cows you really have.

• A SWISS CORPORATION:
  You have 5000 cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge for storing them for others. If they give milk, you tell no one.

• A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION:
  You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows. You expropriate them. The American corporation goes chapter 11.

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

• A NAZI:
  You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoot you

  Alternative: A COWSMIC VIEW OF WORLD ORGANIZATION

• BUREAUCRACY:
  You have two cows. State takes both of them, kill one and spill the milk in system of sewage.

• 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 as much milk as you need.

• BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM:
  You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-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 as many eggs as the regulations 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 have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

• RUSSIAN COMMUNISM:
  You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

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

• SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY:
  You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.

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

• PURE DEMOCRACY:
  You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

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

• AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:
  The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".

• BRITISH DEMOCRACY:
  You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

• 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. After that 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.

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

• HONG KONG 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 associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

• ENVIRONMENTALISM:
  You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

• FEMINISM:
  You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

• TOTALITARIANISM:
  You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

• POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:
  You are associated with (the concept of "ownership"is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

• COUNTER CULTURE:
  Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!

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

• JAPANESE DEMOCRACY:
  You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.

• EUROPEAN FEDERALISM:
  You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.

• EASTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY:
  You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water) at a high price to the neighbors or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for receipt, you charge for a two times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For concerned families with small babies you claim that the milk is "bio", though you collect the grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the milk in plastic barrels used previously as containers of dangerous chemicals. Later, your neighbor or anybody from town will steal the cows and will buy their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you will be charged for a two times higher price.

• FINNISH SOCIALISM:
  You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-to-date news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need an urgent treatment. Therefore, you soon get a call to the local hospital. The call's date is for 3 months later, because there is a queue with more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you remember that 40 percent of your income is taken for social tax.

• Contracting Capitalism:
  

  Government owns two cows and puts out an RFP for their care and feeding. Awards the contract to the low bidder and pays them 10 times the cows' gross market value (per year) for their support, the prime takes 20% as a pass through, you take out salary for 10 people, plus overhead, plus fixed fee, get an award fee for substandard performance, and eventually kill the cows!

  Additionally ....

  You charge the government to maintain configuration control of their care and feeding instructions (on CD ROM). (You also charge for all hardware required to produce the CDs, maintenance of the hardware, software, frequent updates, consumables, and training of personnel.)

  You charge the government for the preparation and management of the Environmental Impact Statement, public hearings, court cases, and plaintiff awards.

  The contract runs through fruition long after the cows are dead.

  After the cows die you collect the insurance and submit a claim against the government for obstruction and delays in fulfillment of your contract.

  You have beef ribs, steaks and roasts at the company picnic.

  Later you submit an unsolicited bid to produce a Quality Improvement Study to find out why the cows died.

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