Mike Hosking wrote the original Two Cows of economics earlier this year so I thought I’d share my take on the great humorous meme.

By Economies

Democracy

You have 2 cows, 51% of the population votes to eat them.

Republic

You have 2 cows, despite a 51% of the population voting to eat them, the Senate merely stalls their inevitable consumption.

Feudalism

The lord has 2 cows, he also has you and all of your children and brands you like the cows.

Fascism

You have 2 cows, The State takes both and sells you some milk. Then the cows die in the war.

Socialism

You have 2 cows, The State takes one and gives it to your neighbour who doesn’t have a field to put it in.

Nazism

You have 2 cows, The State takes both and shoots you. Then the cows are killed in the war.

Communism

You have 2 cows, The State takes both and gives you some milk. Then the cows die due to neglect.

Surrealism

You have 2 giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Capitalism

You have 2 cows. You sell 1 and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

Theocracy

God owns all of the cows, only certain religious leaders possess them. When you bring up the need for private cow ownership they stone you.

Monarchy

You think you have 2 cows, the king actually owns the cows and let’s you breed and milk them unless or until he decides to go to war.

Bureaucratism

You have 2 cows, the state takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.

EU Bureaucratism

You have 2 cows. The EU takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away because the quota has been exceeded.

Venture Capitalism

You have 2 cows, you sell 3 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. You now get all 4 cows back with a tax exemption for 5 cows. The milk rights of the 6 cows are transferred via an intermediary to the Cayman’s. Majority Stakeholder who secretly owns Cayman account, sells the rights to all 7 cows back to listed company. The annual report says the company owns 8 cows, with an option on one more.

By Nationality

Indian

You have 2 cows, you worship them.

British

You have 2 cows, both are mad.

Irish

You have 2 cows, one of them is a horse.

Welsh

You have 2 cows, You sell them off in order to acquire 2 sheep.

Italian

You have 2 cows, but you don’t know where they are so you go for lunch.

French

You have 2 cows, you go on strike, organize a riot and block the roads, because you want 3 cows.

German

You have 2 cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

Swiss

You have 5K cows, none of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

Canadian

You have 2 cows and they both have to keep apologizing.

Australian

You have 2 cows, business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

American

You have 2 cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

Japanese

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 a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.

Chinese

You have 2 cows, you have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment and high bovine productivity. You arrest the journalist on the ground doing real reporting.

Iraqi

Everyone thinks you have a ton of cows but you keep telling them you have no cows at all. Nobody believes you so they bomb every inch of your territory and invade. You still have no cows but now you have Democracy.

Afghani

You have 1 cow, aerial drone spends decades trying to blow it up, fails.

Russian

You have 2 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 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

Brazilian

You keep telling people you have so many cows. Your politicians keep offering free steaks to it’s citizens. You cut down the rainforest to breed more cows, But later find out you never had any cows in the first place. You start asking what those steaks were made from?

Greek

You have 2 cows borrowed from the French and German banks. You eat both of them. The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF. The IMF loans you 2 cows. You eat them both. The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk. You are out to lunch.