Policow-
A bovine guide to political theorythe “Two Cow Philosophy”
• Feudalism (Knights in shining armor)
– You have two cows. Your lord takes
some of the milk to pay for your
protection. But you raise the cows, one
on his land and one on the church’s.
Democracy
• Pure Democracy- You have two cows.
Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
• Representative Democracy- You have two
cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell
you who gets the milk.
• American Democracy- You have two cows.
The government promises to give everyone
two cows if they vote for it. The
government then taxes you to the point
that 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.
Democrats and Republicans
• Democrats- You have two cows your
neighbor has none. You feel guilty for
being so successfulYou vote people into
office who tax your cows, forcing you to
sell one to raise money to pay the tax.
The people you voted for then take the
tax and buy a cow for your neighbor. You
feel righteous and Barbara Steisand sings
for you.
• Republicans- You have two cows, your
neighbor has none. So what?
Dictatorships
• Communists- You have two cows. The government
takes them both and provides you with milk. You
have to wait in long lines for hours to get it and it
is expensive and sour.
• Fascism (Hitler and Mussolini)- You have two
cows. The government takes them both. Hires
you to care for them and sells you the milk.
• Totalitarianism (total government control)- You
have two cows. The government takes them both
and denies they ever existed and drafts you into
the army. Milk is banned.
• Anarchism- You have two cows. Either you sell
the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to
kill you and take your cows.
• Dictatorship- You have two cows. The
government takes them both and shoots you.
Capitalism and Socialism
• American Capitalism- You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull and build a herd of
cattle. Sell them and retire on the income.
• Socialism- You have two cows. You and
your neighbors help take care of them and
you share the milk. Or the government
takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to
manage his cow.
• American Bureaucracy- You have two
cows. Under the new farm program the
government pays you to shoot one, milk the
other and then pours the milk down the
drain.
Corporations
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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 two 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.
French Corporation- You have two cows but you go on strike
because you want three. You go to lunch, drink wine, 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 and most are the top of their class at cow school.
German Corporation – You have two cows. You engineer them to
live 100 years, all blond, beer drinking, excellent milk quality, run
100 miles an hour, milk themselves and eat only once a month.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
Swiss Corporation – You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to
you. You charge for storing them for others.
Corporations
• California Corportation – You have millions of
cows. They make real California cheese. Only
five speak English and most are illegal.
• Florida Corporation
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown
one best accidentally 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 one you think is the best-looking cow.
Corporations
• Indian Corporation- You have two cows. You
worship them.
• Iraqi Corporation- You have two cows. They go
into hiding and send radio tapes of their mooing.
• Taliban Corporation (Afghnistan)- You have all
the cows in Afghanistan, which is two. You don’t
milk them because you cannot touch any creatures
private parts. The U.S. paid you money to find
alternatives but you use the money to buy
weapons.
• Al Qaeda- You have only two cows. You load
them up with explosives and herd them onto your
neighbor’s property where you blow them up. Your
neighbor dies. You starve to death.
Corporations
• Hong Kong Corporation- 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 associated general offer so that you
get all four cows back, with a tax
deduction for keeping five cows. The milk
rights of the six cows are transferred via
a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman
Island company secretly owned by the
majority stockholder, who sells the rights
to all seven cows back to the listed
company. The annual report says that the
company owns eight cows, with the option
to buy one more.