We've all seen the original list. Here is the updated version. I wish I knew who gets credit - I've enjoyed the list, and the variations, for years. And all you Hillary fans and Michigan auto workers - be sure to read to the end.
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office that 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.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
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 cow.
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.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
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.
AMERICAN BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.
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, lease it back to yourself, and do an IPO on the 2nd cow. You force the 2 cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when they drop dead. You spin an announcement
stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
ENRON VENTURE 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 trans-ferred 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.
FRENCH CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch. Life is good.
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. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school. You create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.
GERMAN CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, run a hundred miles an hour, live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves. Unfortunately they demand 13 weeks of paid vacation per year, and have their hearts set on grazing in France, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Russia, Greece, and England.
BRITISH CAPITALISM
You have two cows. Both are mad. You make a documentary about them for BBC that nobody watches. Someone else makes a witty comedy about them and everyone watches that.
ITALIAN CAPITALISM
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. While you are ambling around looking for them you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.
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. The Russian Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
SWISS CAPITALISM
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them. You charge extra for not disclosing to whom the cows belong.
INDIAN HINDU CAPITALISM
You have two cows. Your children are starving, so you pray to the cows for divine relief.
AUSTRALIAN CAPITALISM
You have two cows. Both are on the barbie. Life is good.
CHINESE CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the true numbers, execute him, and sell his organs in Hong Kong.
POLISH CAPITALISM
You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
TALIBAN CAPITALISM
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. Then you kill them and claim a USbomb blew them up while they were in the hospital. Saudi Arabia pays you $100,000 for each martyred cow.
FLORIDA CAPITALISM
You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out of State tell you which is the best-looking one.
NEW YORK CAPITALISM
You have fifteen million cows. You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
You have two cows. You send them through process improvement training on how to produce more milk, run more aerodynamically, be more physically appealing to the bulls. You make them give you a business plan and goals by day, week, month, quarter, and for the year. You make them fill out reports on how they walk to the milking stalls, eat, milking process, and how much they produce each day. They get so stressed out they stop producing milk. You send them back for more meetings on milk production.
