Capitalism for Dummies
Wednesday, April 27, 2005Capitalism for Dummies
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.
American Capitalism: 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.
French Capitalism: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
Japanese Capitalism: 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 cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.
German Capitalism: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
Italian Capitalism: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.
British Capitalism: You have two cows. Both are mad.
Russian Capitalism: 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.
Arkansas Capitalism: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...
Hindu Capitalism: You have two cows. You worship them.
Swiss Capitalism: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.
Canadian Capitalism: You have two cows. Let’s make a hockey team, eh?
Chinese Capitalism: 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.
Irish Capitalism: You have two cows. You feed them potatoes and wonder why they emigrate.
Israeli Capitalism: 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?
Enron 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.
Cuban Capitalism: You have two cows. They try to swim to Florida.
Politically Correct Capitalism: 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.
Disney Capitalism: You have two cows. They dance & sing.
Microsoft Capitalism: You have two cows. You patent them and sue anyone else who has them.
Hollywood Capitalism: You have two cows. You give them utter implants and also teach them to bullet-dodge, wall climb and shoot milk out of their utters on command.
Clinton Capitalism: You have two cows. You deny any knowledge of them.
Bureaucratic Capitalism: You have two 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 eggs the regulations say you should need.
Gore Capitalism: You have two cows. You claim you invented them.
Real-World Capitalism: You have two cows. 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.
Australian Capitalism: You have two cows. You try to wrestle them.
Iraqi Capitalism: You have two cows. They are biochemical weapons.
Perestroika Capitalism: You have two cows. You have to 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.
Jewish Capitalism: You have two cows. You set them on fire and they burn for 8 days.
Cambodian Capitalism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Mormon Capitalism: You have two cows. You tell everyone that they should as well.
Military Capitalism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
Texan Capitalism: You have two cows. You teach them to fire guns.
Totalitarian Capitalism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Nevadan Capitalism: You have two cows. You charge lonely men from Arkansas to spend the night with them.
Jehovah’s Witness Capitalism: You have two cows. You go door to door telling people that you do.
Bureaucrat Capitalism: 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.
Real Capitalism: 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.
Environmental Capitalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking them.
Surreal Capitalism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
Californian Capitalism: You have two cows. They are happy.
Bush Capitalism: You have two cows. You think that cows and humans can coexist peacefully. You give all of the milk to the upper class when they have cows of their own, and the lower class needs milk.
Martha Stewart Capitalism: You have two cows. After decorating them, you sell them because a farmer told you the price of milk might go down.
Ayn Rand Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell both so that you can invest in a new dairy company. After it does well, you sell you stock and buy a cow farm.
After that does well, you take out a loan using cows as capitol and build a milk manufacturing factory. After making your milk the most sold, you sell the company and retire to Hawaii with your millions of dollars.
