DEMOCRATIC

You have two cows.Your neighbor has none.You feel guilty for being successful.Barbara Streisand sings for you.


REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.Your neighbor has none.So?


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.


BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, 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 2nd one. You force the two 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 and drink wine.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 engineer 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.The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.


TALIBAN CORPORATION

You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.


IRAQI CORPORATION

You have two cows.They go into hiding.They send radio tapes of their mooing.


POLISH CORPORATION

You have two bulls.Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.


BELGIAN CORPORATION

You have one cow.The cow is schizophrenic.Sometimes the cow thinks she's French, other times she's Flemish.The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.The cow asks permission to be cut in half.The cow dies happy.


FLORIDA CORPORATION

You have a black cow and a brown cow.Everyone votes for the best looking one.Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally 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 one you think is the best-looking cow.


CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

You have millions of cows.They make real California cheese.Only five speak English.Most are illegals.Arnold likes the ones with the big udders

I am going to use this chart in political science class tomorrow.

That was nice. I say, you have two cows, you milk the cow, the government takes 20% of the milk as tax and returns sour milk for your tax returns.

I have a slight correction to make:

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows... You buy land off all of your neighbours, and eventually for thousands of miles around you. You pay everyone in the area to work for you, but you give them increasingly smaller percentages of your profits. Eventually, you have millions of workers, but they get an absolutely tiny percentage of your profits whilst you live it up with the rest of the richest 1% of the nation. Half of your workers are in poverty, but you don't care. Life is good...for you.

. That sounds suspiciously like Fuedalism. I think the story works better like this.

You have two cows.You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows... You give a healthy portion of the milk to your neighboring countries that have none, while most of your other neighbors with smaller herds of cows give little or nothing and use their milk to make their own lives better.

When one neighbor decides to come steal or kill another neighbor's cows, you mortgage the farm to go defend the neighbor who's cows are being killed, because good peaceable farming makes for good trade. In the meantime, the same neighbors who horde their milk to themselves call you an *sshole for getting involved. Eventually. when the farm mortgage becomes fairly sizable, a few of your own kids begin to call you an *sshole and ask you to start hording milk and let your idiot neighbors fend for themselves.

Originally Posted by cbwm

. That sounds suspiciously like Fuedalism. I think the story works better like this.

You have two cows.You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows... You give a healthy portion of the milk to your neighboring countries that have none, while most of your other neighbors with smaller herds of cows give little or nothing and use their milk to make their own lives better.

When one neighbor decides to come steal or kill another neighbor's cows, you mortgage the farm to go defend the neighbor who's cows are being killed, because good peaceable farming makes for good trade. In the meantime, the same neighbors who horde their milk to themselves call you an *sshole for getting involved. Eventually. when the farm mortgage becomes fairly sizable, a few of your own kids begin to call you an *sshole and ask you to start hording milk and let your idiot neighbors fend for themselves.

That's one way of reflecting on G.W. Bush's war on terror.

By the way, you are obsessed with low taxes and tax cuts etc. - how on earth would the Republicans pay for all this war if they did what you wanted and lowered taxes much further? They are in enough debt as it is....

Originally Posted by whym

how on earth would the Republicans pay for all this

By badmouthing China until the "Kommies" pay for the neo con adventure.

Originally Posted by whym

how on earth would the Republicans pay for all this war if they did what you wanted and lowered taxes much further? They are in enough debt as it is....

The tax cuts fuel the economy which feed taxes. Lets repeat, "Tax cuts = more tax revenues". Don't make me put up Phil's chart again.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

By badmouthing China until the "Kommies" pay for the neo con adventure.

Sadly, this is not far from the truth. Dollar falls, Yen climbs, we recede, they inflate, we repay our debt with dollars worth half of what they were when we borrowed them. Of course that presumes we reduce our current rate of spending somewhat.

Wow, is China communist or Japan?

http://www.chinatoday.com/fin/mon/

Yen Yuan Potato Pototo. Who says the Japanese aren't Kommies?

Tell the truth. You didn't know. Shooting from the hip like the rest of Sean Hannity's disciples

Originally Posted by cbwm

The tax cuts fuel the economy which feed taxes. Lets repeat, "Tax cuts = more tax revenues". Don't make me put up Phil's chart again.

If that was true, the tax rate everywhere in the world would be zero, or negative. If tax cuts lead to more tax revenues, governments would find themselves in an arms race to the bottom to attract more of the taxed who could go to a different jurisdiction. But this isn't what we see at all.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

If that was true, the tax rate everywhere in the world would be zero, or negative. If tax cuts lead to more tax revenues, governments would find themselves in an arms race to the bottom to attract more of the taxed who could go to a different jurisdiction. But this isn't what we see at all.

Forrest, it makes me sad to see you shoulder the oversimplified talking points of the left. We as Americans pay over 50% of our money to the government. Bringing that number down to somewhere around 25% would do wonders to stimulate our economy and generate more actual tax revenue. Even 45% would have a HUGE impact. Obviously 0% of anything is still zero. Here, once again, is the short list of the taxes we currently pay. Please consider that the majority of these taxes are taxes on post tax income which means you need to multiply by at least 1.3 in most cases to determine the real impact on pretax income.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax,
Fuel permit tax
Federal Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
State Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest expense
Inventory tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road usage taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

By the way, people and companies DO flood into lower tax areas as evidenced by the boom in Scottsdale AZ, and many other places. Doing business in California, tax wise, has long been a painful counterweight to the desirability of the location as a place to live.

And then you have Michigan which has decided that adding a sales tax to "service" providers (web developers, chiropractors, etc.) is a great idea and is seeing tons of businesses flood south to Indiana..

Originally Posted by cbwm

Forrest, it makes me sad to see you shoulder the oversimplified talking points of the left math.

You're mistaken, my friend ... in your assumptions here and the ones I replied to earlier.

Just trying to make me bust out Phil's chart again, aren't you. I WONT DO IT! YOU CANT MAKE ME DO IT. That said, be both know what is on the chart, proving the math to be on my side.

Originally Posted by cbwm

Just trying to make me bust out Phil's chart again, aren't you. I WONT DO IT! YOU CANT MAKE ME DO IT. That said, be both know what is on the chart, proving the math to be on my side.

Who would benefit from your tax cuts? The poor? The lower half of the middle class? Or the people who already have a decent lifestyle and want more money for greed rather than survival?

Originally Posted by whym

Who would benefit from your tax cuts? The poor? The lower half of the middle class? Or the people who already have a decent lifestyle and want more money for greed rather than survival?

actually the poor benefit more from tax cuts. If their pay check is already small they would like not paying so much in taxes to make it even smaller.

There is someone named FICA who is getting rich off me.

Originally Posted by whym

Who would benefit from your tax cuts? The poor? The lower half of the middle class? Or the people who already have a decent lifestyle and want more money for greed rather than survival?

Those who have money and want more are greedy? How much do you have to have to transition to "working to improve my family's wellbeing" to "greedy? What qualifies as a decent lifestyle? If I can afford health care for my family should I be taxed more? How about if my kids have their own cars? How about if I have life insurance? What If I have savings besides my home? What about if I've invested for my kids college at an early age... does that group me into the group that needs more taxes because I have a decent lifestyle?

To answer your question, just about any tax cut that effects everyone would be good. The Bush tax cuts on capital gains were such a tax cut, even though the Democrats and that idiot McCain tried and say they were tax cuts for the rich.