N&Q3 – CowNomics
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.
You share your milk with six indigent families.
No one has enough milk.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you a liter of milk for which you stand in line three hours.
You work on the black market for more milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State expropriates your milk.
Your uncle, the local Colonel, brings milk for your coffee on the weekend.
NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both.
You applaud.
BUDDHISM
You reincarnate as a cow and are milked to death.
Before you die, you become philosophical and accept your fate.
You reincarnate as a person, milk a cow to death and reincarnate as…
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and keeps the milk while pondering a fair system of distribution. The milk goes bad.
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, but the market crashes.
You jump off a window ledge.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take a degree in herd management.
The giraffes take the course with you and become cows.
You become rich and buy two giraffes.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one.
You force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
The cow dies and you hire a consultant to analyze why.
The consultant tells you to try the team approach.
ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell 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 to get ten cows back with a tax exemption for 20 cows. You exchange the unused tax exemptions for surplus milk rights which you transfer via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company which sells then to your publicly listed company for a 500% profit.
You sell rights to the milk of eight cows to the public company, whose annual report says the company owns 80 cows with an option on eight more.
You sell a cow and use the proceeds to donate campaign funds to a future US President. The President bombs Holland because it sells too much cheese. The President hires you to restart Holland’s dairy industry.
THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
One goes on strike for better pension rights. The other burns the suburbs.
You elect a new President who gets divorced and raises his salary by 2000%.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce 20 times the milk.
You create a clever cow cartoon called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You have 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 37 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
A newsman reports the real situation. You arrest the newsman.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them and don’t have any milk.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They destroy the milking equipment before football games.
You donate the cows to an African country on condition that the country buys 100 battle tanks and 20 jet fighters from you at inflated prices.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No one believes you, so they invade your country.
You still have no cows, but now you are a democracy.
A CANADIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers.
