Cows and World Governments
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. You have to take care of them, but the
government takes all the milk.
DICTATORSHIP: You have 2 cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. The government fines you for
illegally keeping 2 unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. Your neighbors pick someone
through a vote to tell you who gets the milk.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you 2 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 2 cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they
go mad. The government doesn't do anything.
BUREAUCRACY: You have 2 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.
CAPITALISM: You have 2 cows. You sell one and buy a bull which you use to
breed the other cow as well as every other cow in the area. Then you start
exporting sperm from the bull to emerging markets. After several years of
expansion, your company issues an IPO to be listed on the NYSE. The SEC
eventually intends legal proceedings against you and your spouse for insider
trading. After a lengthy court battle, you are found guilty and sentenced to
10 years in prison, of which you actually serve 7 weeks. When you come out
of prison, you buy 2 chickens. Then,....
HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have 2 cows. You sell 3 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 4 cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping 5 cows. The
milk rights of 6 cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a
Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells
the rights to all 7 cows' milk back to the listed company and proceeds from
the sale are deferred. The annual report says that the company owns 8 cows,
with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the 2 cows because the feng
shui is bad.
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have 2 cows. The government bans you from milking or
killing them.
FEMINISM: You have 2 cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
TOTALITARIANISM: Your have 2 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-mongerism, intolerant past) 2
differently aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of unpecified
gender.
COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like ... these 2 cows, man. You got to
have some of this milk!
SURREALISM: You have 2 giraffes. The government requires you to take
harmonica lessons.
LIBERTY: Whatever.
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