A SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbour. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his.

A DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You 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 money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.

A REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. So?

A 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.

A FASCIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage, which ultimately blows up the cows.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull.

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.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: 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.

AN 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 that you have reduced your expenses. Your stock goes up.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch. Life is good.

A 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.

A 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 holidays a year.

AN 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. She pays for it. You spend the afternoon making love. Life is good.

A 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 20th 5-year plan in the last three months. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge for storing them for others. If they give milk, you tell no one.

A TALIBAN CORPORATION: 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.

A FLORIDA CORPORATION: 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.

A NEW YORK CORPORATION: You have fifteen million cows. You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick one from Arkansas.

And last but not least:

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 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 and has no liabilities. The report's audit opinion page has been torn out.

CORPORATE COMMUNISM

FAIRY TALES & JOKES