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Weekend Contest: Two-Cow Economics
Professional economists get tired of explaining complicated concepts to those of us who can’t count to 20 without taking off our shoes. One popular simplification is to compare competing economic systems using the example of a farmer who owns two cows. A Kiwi talk-show host named Mike Hosking put a few of the examples in graphic form:
After going through the main economic systems, he compared various countries’ approach to globalism:
Most of the entries were pretty good, others were weak, but I know that the readers of Ricochet can come up with better descriptions. Write your ideas below in text (one idea per comment) and “like” all your favorites. Whichever comment has the most likes by 6 p.m., I’ll drop it into the the graphic format above and add it to this post.
Ready. Set. MOO!
UPDATE: And, with 33 “likes,” the winner of the contest is Arizona Patriot with a redefinition of Communism:
Porn Industry:
You have one cow.
She’s well paid, but still doesn’t let her parents know what she does.
She hit the bottle hard the first time she did heifer-on-heifer.
Porn Industry:
You have one cow.
She’s well paid, but still doesn’t let her parents know what she does.
She hit the bottle hard the first time she did heifer-on-heifer.
She’s working her way through cow college.
(Sorry Cat III, I don’t know how to quote from my phone)
Californianism:
You have two cows. The government replaces them with two smelt.
Kafka Capitalism
You have two cows. On your 30th birthday two men deliver a letter from the USDA advising you that the cages for your cows must be at least 4.5 feet by 3.25 feet, placed in a well-ventilated area with sufficient dietary grit and clean straw for their eggs. When you reply in writing that you own cows, not chickens, you are informed 7 weeks later that a cow is most certainly not a chicken and that you appear to be in violation of the Chicken Purity and Falling Sky Prevention Act of 1993 which explicitly prohibits fraudulent substitution of any quadruped ruminant for a chicken, goose, duck, or turkey and that a fine has been levied on you, Josef K., to the tune of $1,000/day as of the receipt of yours 7 weeks prior. (And P.S., the EPA is somewhat disturbed about the probable excess methane production of your chickens and in light of the further investigation that will not take place imposes an additional daily fine in an amount to be specified.) In the course of considerable further correspondence and consultations with very odd lawyers concerning your cows and the fact that your name is Bob, you are sent a book in German called Der Prozess as required by the Middle-European Angst Reduction Act and which outlines all preceding, current, and future proceedings.
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Long story short: on your 31st birthday you are led to a quarry where your last words are “Wie ein Hund” (like a dog) having learned passable German during the year with a pronunciation that is really quite remarkable considering you have a knife in your heart (Herz).
Columbia:
The only reason you have cows is to transport bags of crack you hide in their rectum.
Arizona Slum:
You’re such a junkie, you’ll use crack that came from a cow’s rectum.
The War on Drugs:
The government forbids you from selling or using crack so they can confiscate your cow.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
There are two groups of public school cows. One produces lots of milk, and the other eats lots of hay but produces very little milk.
Hundreds of cow-friends and relatives of the poor-producing cows gather to bellow loudly in front of the dairy owner’s house. They complain that the milkers and milking machines are guilty of reinforcing systemic high-production privilege.
The dairyman sends the milker away for additional training, where he learns to administer rigorous daily assessments of bovine higher-level thinking. In fact, his pay is now based on the cows’ test scores on this capability. The milker has no time for milking.
All the cows go dry, but their higher-level thinking scores, at least as they’re reported, improve.
Many of the cows go on to post-dairy facilities to study higher-level thinking, where they live on borrowed hay.
Oregon Economics
You have two cows. You send one to the coast where it gets to experience real cow life. It lives out its life on a family farm a stone’s throw away from the ocean making milk for cheese and ice cream almost like it live in a real functional state.
Your other cow gets sent to the all natural hobby farm of a Portland couple. She is a computer programmer and he is a barista. That cow is then humanely slaughtered and sold to swanky hipster restaurant wedged in between a restaurant selling tempeh burgers and a boutique purveyor of artisan soaps and vegan perfumes. At the restaurant the customers sanctimoniously ask to know the second cow’s lifestory while paying $13 for the steak bites appetizer and complaining they don’t have any money. They can’t seem to make ends meet even though they went to Reed and triple majored in Women’s, LGBTQ, and Chicano studies. They demand $15 minimum wage.
American positivist school of economics. Assume you have two cows
Keynesian: one of your cows dies so the government gives the survivor double rations of fresh alfalfa to replace the lost production. It dies of bloat.
Austrian. you turn them lose and the heard expands, so the EPA fines you for violating the pure pasture regulation which it just wrote, confiscates your cows and gives them to your neighbor who is the Democratic Senator from your state.
Krugman: there is no such thing as cows so he writes an article scoffing at your stupidity.
Libertarianism.
You have two cows.
They wander away.
Once we Make America Great Again we’ll have so many cows. You won’t believe how many cows we’re gonna have. And they’ll be luxurious, top-of-the line cows giving only the finest milk from their ample, full, fantastic udders.
Two cows are for losers.
Favorite! You’re going to get ALAAAAHTA “Likes,” Mr. Dart.
Update: The farm hand who was responsible for “milking” the bull who thinks it’s a cow had to be put into a mental hospital.
Eminent Domain:
You have two cows.
You give one cow to bribe the government to bulldoze your neighbor’s pasture so you can build a luxurious cow hotel.
Years later you run for president to much acclaim.
It’s taken me a lot of restraint not to make a bestiality joke yet.
Through a series of complicated deals, you end up with a Minotaur?
One cow is black on the left side, and white on the right side. The other cow is white on the left side, and black on the right side. Which cow is better? Can’t you see–are you blind? It’s the cow with the black left side! No, wait! It’s the cow with the white left side! Or is it? Now I’m confused…. Black? White? Left? Right?
Democrats [corrected]:
They collect cattle, but only produce bull crap.
Milton Friedman:
Many dairy farmers want the government to protect the cows. A much more urgent problem is to protect the cows from the government.
The Greek one made me laugh so hard just now I couldn’t read the caption to my wife. Brilliant stuff!
The Communism one has one missing sentence:
Republican Party:
You have two cows.
The Democrats win an election and take your cows.
Polls show 55% think this was wrong.
The Republicans promise to give your cows back.
The Republicans spend the next eight years fighting each other over how to give your cows back.
And eventually decide it’s been too long to worry about it. Some even decide that it was probably a good idea to begin with.
Unless you’re in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker manages to give a cow back to you.
The Democrats scream about it and ask you to make him give the cow back.
You decide you’d rather keep your cow.
Obamacare:
If you like your cow, you can keep your cow.
But only brown cows that produce 8.5 gallons of milk per day and are 58 inches high are allowed.
Your cow is black and produces 8 gallons of milk.
Your insurance company shoots your cow.
The new cow costs twice as much. But the government pays one third.
And we all benefit from the cost savings.
Obamanomics:
You got it covered.
And we all have a share in the cost “savings.” (Might be better.)
I should have added that you can only drink 7 gallons of milk anyway.