The Pot of Gold
A progressive, a Wall Street economist, and a Republican are asked to find a pot of gold that doesn’t really exist in a closed room with the lights off. The progressive spends hours methodically trying to find the pot of gold inside the dark room, correctly concludes that it doesn’t exist, and ends up taking to the streets to tell the world that it’s all a lie — there is no pot of gold in the dark room and, if the door were opened and light let in, everyone would plainly see that. The Wall Street economist is, of course, unable to actually see the pot of gold that doesn’t exist inside the darkened room, but exits the room after an hour, proudly proclaiming that he has constructed a computer model to predict the exact location of the mythological pot of gold with extreme accuracy, but that light would make the pot of gold disappear, so it must remain hidden in the dark. The economist then highly recommends Pot O’ Gold stock, which he had secretly invested in before entering the dark room, and accumulates considerable wealth for himself and his firm as the share price shoots up. The Republican walks confidently into the darkened room, spends five minutes looking for the pot of gold that he already knows doesn’t exist and shouts from inside the room that he has it in his hands and he’ll gladly show it to the public — once he’s elected.
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Comparing Systems of Government
SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The state takes one and gives it to someone else.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and gives you a pint of sour milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and forces you to buy the sour milk.
MILITARY DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and shoots you for drinking the sour milk they gave you.
THEOCRACY: You have two cows. The State takes their milk in the name of God and guarantees you when you die you’ll go straight to heaven. If you object, you’re burned at the stake.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull, hoping the cow will give you a few calves and increase your wealth. The bull turns out to be old and impotent, but still lively enough to lethally impale the cow and eat you out of house and home.
WALL STREET CAPITALISM: You agree to buy two old cows that don’t give milk. You don’t have enough money to pay for them, so you sell the cows to someone else, who buys them based on your sterling reputation. Meanwhile, you secretly bet the cows won’t give milk and the guy will go broke. When the cows don’t give any milk, the new owner of the cows goes broke, and you make off like a bandit.
DISASTER CAPITALISM: You hide both your cows and then pretend there’s a ‘milk crisis.’ While panic strikes the public, you take the opportunity to pass laws making your two cows the only legal source of milk, even though they can’t possibly give enough milk to feed everyone. Milk is then available only to those with immense wealth, while the rest of the nation starves.
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors vote on who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to decide who gets the milk.
AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Lobbyists for large multinational corporations pick someone to decide who gets the milk.
ANARCHY: You had two cows, but both were spray-painted with slogans and then stolen by people in black ski-masks, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
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Screwing in the Light Bulb Jokes
Q: How many conservative Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?
A1: None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself in.
A2: None. We don’t need light bulbs — the invisible hand of the free market will enlighten us.
A3: If the new light bulb is one of those fancy ‘energy efficient’ light bulbs, forget it!
A4: Change is never the answer!
A5: Get one of those new kid janitors to do it.
Q: How many Wall Street CEOs does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Just one — he holds the light bulb and the whole earth revolves around him.
