Corporate Cattle
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An American Corporation
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You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
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A French Corporation
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You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
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A Japanese Corporation
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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 clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.
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A German Corporaiton
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You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for
100
years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
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A British Corporation
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You have two cows. Both are mad.
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An Italian Corporation
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You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You break for lunch.
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A Russian Corporation
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You have two 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
12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
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A Swiss Corporation
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You have 5,000
cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.
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An Indian Corporation
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You have two cows. You worship them.
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A Chinese Corporation
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You have two cows. You have
300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.
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An Israeli Corporation
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So, there are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?
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ICF Consulting
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You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...
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Enron
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You have two cows.
You borrow 80%
of the forward value of the two cows from
your bank, then buy another cow with 5% down and the rest
financed by the seller on a note callable if your market cap
goes below $20 billion
at a rate two times prime. You now sell three
cows to your publicly listed company, using letters of
credit opened by your brother-in-law at a second bank, then
execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer
so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for
five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via
an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by
the majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows
back to your listed company. The annual report says the
company owns eight cows, with an option on one more and this
transaction process is upheld by your independent auditor.
No balance sheet accompanies the press release that
announces Enron as a major owner of cows will begin
trading cows via the Internet site COW
(Cows On Web).
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