SOCIALISM: You have two cows; you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have two cows. The State takes both and you never see them again.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

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

IDEALISTIC 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.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two 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.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

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. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have forty-two cows. You count them again and learn you have two cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and execute the reporter who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have one. No one believes you, so they bomb you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy.

AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The Government says you have to buy a license to milk them, but first you have to do a risk assessment, which only the government Quango is allowed to carry out. They charge you 5 times the cost of doing it. They find that the three-legged stool is a risk under health and safety. You have to buy the EC approved five-legged stool that is designed to support a milkmaid of up to 250 kilos. It is too heavy to carry. The stool exceeds EC weight lifting limits for workers by 4 kilos, which just happens to be the weight of the fifth leg. To shift the stool from one cow to the other you therefore need a special (EC approved) trolley. The new stool and trolley are so expensive that you have to mortgage one of the cows to pay for them and pay for the mandatory training course you must take to get your license to milk the cows. You sell your milk to the supermarket chain that pays you next to nothing for it, and then they sell it to their customers for four times what they paid you. Then they release a press statement about how wonderful they are to support British Cows. The rest of the world thinks your cows are mad but you and your cows know that it is not true and anyway the rest of the world have no intention of identifying and counting their mad cows so people in other countries don't know their cows are really, really barmy. You sell your cows to a Polish Migrant worker and your farm to a Russian 'investment bank' and then you leave to buy a villa by the sea in a country where it is sunny and the cost of milk is a tenth the cost of milk at home. They don't have a National Health Service.......but you are so happy and relaxed your health improves and you live to be a hundred.

Amen.