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 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.
You 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.
AUSTRALIAN 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 clever cow cartoon
images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.
GERMAN
CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live
for 100 years, eat only once a month, and milk themselves.
BRITISH
CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. Both are mad.
CANADIAN
CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. Come to think of it, they look more
like a pair of moose - in fact, yes they are. One speaks French, one
speaks English. One fights to create a new country, the other won't
let it. They both play ice hockey rather well.
ITALIAN
CAPITALISM:
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch.
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.
SWISS CAPITALISM:
You have 5000 cows, none of which
belong to you. You charge an outrageous fee to others for storing
them.
CHINESE CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You have 300
people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine
productivity, and arrest and detain without trial the journalist who
reported the number of cows.
NEW ZEALAND CAPITALISM:
You
have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...
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