I got this as an email from my dad, but it's been floating around in some form or another for years.  The 'Star Trek' bits are my own.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows.  You sell one and buy a bull.

HONG KONG 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 associated general offer so that you get all four cows back with a tax deduction for keeping five cows.  The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the right to all seven cow's milk back to the listed company.  The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.  Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because of bad feng shui.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: you have two cows.  The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it.  After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures.  The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".  The cow sues you for breach of contract.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows.  You feed them sheep brains and they go mad.  The government doesn't do anything.

FASCISM: You have two cows.  The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows.  At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them.  Then it pays you not to milk them.  After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the mild down the drain.  Then it requires yo to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows.  Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

APPLIED COMMUNISM: You have two cows.  You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

 DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows.  The government takes both and shoots you.

MILITARISM: You have two cows.  The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows.  Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows.  Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

LESBIANISM: You have two cows.  They get married and adopt a veal calf.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows.  Your lord takes some of the milk.

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows.  The government takes them and enies they ever existed.  Milk is banned.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of 'ownership' is a symbol of the phallocentric, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of nonspecified gender.

COUNTERCULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like ... these two cows, amn.  You have got to have some of this milk.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes.  The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

STAR TREK: You have two cows.  You realise that they are sentient beings and set them free, in accordance with the Prime Directive. The Ferengi take advantage of the fluctuating beef market to sell lamb.

THE X FILES: You have two cows.  The government takes them and denies that they ever existed.  You spend the rest of your life trying to prove the connection between the American government and the beef industry.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: You have two cows.  They are killed by a teenage girl who claims that they were demons.  Driven by your craving for milk, you become an evil entity, preying on cute teenagers until you yourself are destroyed by the aforementioned teenage girl.

ALLY MCBEAL: You have one cow.  She loses an enormous amount of weight, becomes a neurotic lawyer and gets her own TV show.

I can't copyright this (most of it's not mine) so I guess all I can say is treat it nicely.

Comments?  Email: elizabeth_barr@yahoo.com.au