Michael’s updated, alphabetized, and expanded anthology of two cow analogies:
AMERICAN 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 stating you have downsized and are
reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.
ANARCHY: You have two cows. your neighbor on your left takes
one cow, and the one on the right takes the other; while
your backyard neighbor takes the milk, the bucket and the stool.
BRITISH: You have two cows. They are crazy. You try to sell
them in Europe.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. The government takes them
both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk and then pours it down
the drain!
CANADIANISM: You have two cows. The bank takes both of them,
shoots one, throws away the milk and you shoot yourself.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes them both
and provides you with the milk.
CONSERVATIVISM: You have two cows. You lock them up, and
charge people to look at them.
CORPORATE: You have two cows. You sell one, force the other
to produce the milk of four cows and then act surprised when it drops dead!
DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government taxes you to
the point you must sell them both in order to support the man in a foreign
country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your
government!
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.
DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You
feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who put a tax on
your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people
you voted for then take the tax money,
buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government orders you
to shoot them.
EDUCATIONALISM: You have two cows. You pay for them to go to
university. They come home as philosophy graduates and want to debate "The
Morality Of Milk In A Cross-Species Society". Giving milk is now beneath
their station in life anyway.
ENRON CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell four of them to your publicly traded company, using
letters of credit signed by your brother-in-law the auditor, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general partnership so that you get all six
cows back, with a tax exemption for nine cows.
Transfer the milk rights of the fifteen cows via an intermediary to a Cayman
Island partnership secretly owned by the Vice President of Finance, who sells
the rights to all eighteen cows back to your listed company.
The Annual report says the company owns twenty eight cows, with an option to
purchase fourteen more using a debt/equity swap. All cows are hedged with puts,
including unpurchased cows.
Provide only selected portions of the Balance Sheet. All cows are pro forma.
Trade all fifty cows for the Presidency & Vice Presidency of the United
States, leaving you with a negative number of cows.
The public always buys your bull. Leave it to the public to clean up your mess.
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you
from milking or killing them.
EUROPEAN UNIONISM: You have two cows. The EU develops a
quota system that "limits the gas emissions from flatulent cows." You
sell your carbon allotment, not the milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of
them and sells you the milk.
FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the
milk.
FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike
because you want three cows. You go to lunch. Life is good.
GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer 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.
INDIA: You have two cows. You worship them.
INDUSTRIALISM: You have two cows. You dissect them both and
figure out how to build a milk-factory instead.
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.
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.
LAWYERISM: You see two cows and note that their milk has not
been labeled "Contains lactose." You find 20 lactose-intolerant
people, start a class action suit against the owner of the cows, the regional
dairy co-operative, the distributor and the retailer. You settle out of court
for £1,000,000. Lactose intolerant milk drinkers get five quid each. You get
the rest. You act surprised when the owner goes berserk and shoots his cows.
You feign astonishment when the dairy co-op, the distributor and the retailer
all go out of business.
MARXISM/LENINISM: The proletarian cows unite and overthrow
the bourgeoisie cowherds. The egalitarian democratic cow
revolutionary state with the cow party as vanguard
disintegrate over time.
MEXICO: You think you have two cows, but you don't know what
a cow looks like. You take a nap.
MILITARIANISM: You have two cows. the government takes both
and drafts you.
MONARCHY: You have two cows. You give some milk to the
King/Queen.
NAZISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and
then shoots you.
NEW DEALISM: You have two cows. The government takes both,
shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. The government
insists there is a giant storage tank where all the milk goes.
PACIFISM: You have two cows. They stampede you.
PLATONISM: You have two cows. You look for two other cows to
milk.
POLISH CORPORATION: You have two bulls. Employees are
regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
REALISATIONALISM: You have two cows. They are for their
calves, their milk was never meant for human consumption!
REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
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 however many cows you really have.
SOCRATIC METHODISM: How many cows do I have? Why?
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.
TALIBANISM: You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which is two. You don't milk
them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. At night when no
one is looking, you milk both of them. Then you kill them and claim a US bomb
blew them up while they were in the hospital.
TOTATITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they
ever existed. Milk is banned.
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