Economics/Poli-sci 101

This has been seen all over the net, and if anyone can tell me who to properly attribute it to, I'd be grateful.

For those of you who are confused over terms bandied about such as "Republican" and "Democrat," I offer a quick course in economics and political science theory:

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? It's not your fault he didn't stay in school. Never-the-less, ultimately you take pity on your neighbor and see that his children have milk, while you encourage him to accept responsibility for his situation and to work hard to acquire his own cows.

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.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

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.

AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the second one. You force the 2 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. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch. 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. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer 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 vacation per year.

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. Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have some vodka. 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. The Mafia shows up and takes over how ever many cows you really have.

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.

Comments

[Rob]

There is an often forgotten verse in the Bible which says: For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10

Mind you, there's a huge distinction between "would not work" and "cannot work". There will always be those who end up in a bad way, but the government should not be in the business of creating that class of people. Growing up my mom needed assistance as it was just her and my sister and I. She had a really, really low paying job and was on food stamps. When an opportunity to advance in her job came around she had to pass, since the pay increase would not have offset the food stamps she whould have lost. There was a very wide band of income above where she was where it would not have been financially beneficial to be due to lost benefits. The system encouraged you to stay down. That's a broken system.

[Obi-Wan]

Yeah, for sure. See my comment here.

[Earl Fornash]

The American corporation one is wrong.

In that one, you have two cows, your neighbor has none. You hire him to milk your cow at wages so low he has to forsake medical care to pay for milk his family needs. You make a fortune on the milk by creating new milk products with flashy, expensive TV ads that make it look like drinking your milk will make people live in a constant orgasm. Except that it's really the same old milk with caffeine and garbage chemicals nobody recognizes thrown in.

You pay Jack Abramoff millions of bucks to get rich senators to throw out laws that require you to buy equipment that makes your milk safe to drink. In return you fund their campaigns. Then you meet a wealthy and spoiled Texan who will run for president and he tells you he'll do things for you the senators can't do. So you get him elected and he sends the army to invade a small middle eastern country where there aren't many cows.

You set up new milking operations there and sell tons of your bogus milk products, but there aren't any laws about quality or safety there at all, so the cows get mastitis and people contract salmonella and other infections from the milk. When a reporter asks your PR guy about the infected milk, he responds, "We sell the highest quality milk products in the world," and that's good enough for the reporter, who works for your media company. In response to the whole situation, you take a skiing trip to the Alps and get a million dollar "massage" from a German hooker.