This is quite... long but definitely worth it:

Capitalism 101 The Cow Model

Traditional 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.

American Capitalism:
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.

French Capitalism:
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

Japanese Capitalism:
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 cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

German Capitalism:
You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

Italian Capitalism:
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

British Capitalism:
You have two cows. Both are mad.

Russian Capitalism:
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.

Arkansas Capitalism:
You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

Hindu Capitalism:
You have two cows. You worship them.

Swiss Capitalism:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

Canadian Capitalism:
You have two cows. Let’s make a hockey team, eh?

Chinese Capitalism:
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.

Irish Capitalism:
You have two cows. You feed them potatoes and wonder why they emigrate.

Israeli Capitalism:
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?

Enron Capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

Cuban Capitalism:
You have two cows. They try to swim to Florida.

Politically Correct Capitalism:
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallo centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently - aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

Disney Capitalism:
You have two cows. They dance & sing.

Microsoft Capitalism:
You have two cows. You patent them and sue anyone else who has them.

Hollywood Capitalism:
You have two cows. You give them utter implants and also teach them to bullet-dodge, wall climb and shoot milk out of their utters on command.

Clinton Capitalism:
You have two cows. You deny any knowledge of them.

Bureaucratic Capitalism:
You have two cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.

Gore Capitalism:
You have two cows. You claim you invented them.

Real-World Capitalism:
You have two cows. You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

Australian Capitalism:
You have two cows. You try to wrestle them.

Iraqi Capitalism:
You have two cows. They are biochemical weapons.

Perestroika Capitalism:
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

Jewish Capitalism:
You have two cows. You set them on fire and they burn for 8 days.

Cambodian Capitalism:
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Mormon Capitalism:
You have two cows. You tell everyone that they should as well.

Military Capitalism:
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Texan Capitalism:
You have two cows. You teach them to fire guns.

Totalitarian Capitalism:
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Nevadan Capitalism:
You have two cows. You charge lonely men from Arkansas to spend the night with them.

Jehovah’s Witness Capitalism:
You have two cows. You go door to door telling people that you do.

Bureaucrat Capitalism:
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

Real Capitalism:
You don't have any cows.
The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

Environmental Capitalism:
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking them.

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

Californian Capitalism:
You have two cows. They are happy.

Bush Capitalism:
You have two cows. You think that cows and humans can coexist peacefully. You give all of the milk to the upper class when they have cows of their own, and the lower class needs milk.

Martha Stewart Capitalism:
You have two cows. After decorating them, you sell them because a farmer told you the price of milk might go down.

Ayn Rand Capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell both so that you can invest in a new dairy company. After it does well, you sell your stock and buy a cow farm.
After that does well, you take out a loan using cows as capital and build a milk manufacturing factory. After making your milk the most sold, you sell the company and retire to Hawaii with your millions of dollars.

(downloaded from a jokes site)

Are there any political poems? Funny ones I mean? (I mean funny, funny not something that only makes you grin amused) With an imperialistic edge perhaps? Or more jokes, or songs even?
Thanks for reading anyway

Jenny

Is that supposed to be a poem? I can read all the tired old jokes I want on lots of other sites, Jenny.

Of course it isn't a poem! It's downloaded from a jokes site as I mentioned
(www.jokes.com)

You think it's tired and old? I read it months ago and I still don't mind reading it again. I simply thought other people might want to take a look if they hadn't already but obviously most already have.
And I wondered if there funny political poems I've searched and couldn't find any. I remembered this joke from a radio show I was listening to and it triggered this old capitalism memory. Poetry I hope is not all about dying, the hopelessness of life, or deep and most of the time overdone "inspired" philosophical thinking. Fact: about 80% of all these people end up taking their own lives. That does suggest something about the craft but as I like it so much I won't go there. As Dickinson said: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"
Yes, there is! Many freakin' ways! To experience poetry to the fullest you must read all the genre. Funny, non-funny, idiotic, heavy deep lyrical. Boring. Non boring. Deep. Light superficial drivel. Some have their favorites. I have mine.
From what you posted shall I assume you're angry? Please don't be angry!
And if you are, would that be because of what I posted, how I posted it or you're generally mad because I dared to post in the first place? I won't do it anymore if I'm not welcome.

Sorry, having a bad morning, and waaay too many 'journey' questions on other boards. Plus, too many weirdos posting other nonsense blather on other threads. And, no way to 'kill' unwanted posts on a web-based forum! Not your fault, my apologies.

I have a little book, titled Investment parodies
Ten tax free shares of laughter,
by Arthur Wiesenberger
( I noticed you like "funny poems", from an old post)
.
I sell a stock - no matter what
and up it goes next day
But when I buy - please tell me why
It goes the other way ?

Check the Deacon's Masterpiece,by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
then his Height of the Ridiculous to find why there aren't many really funny poems....

" Fact: about 80% of all these people end up taking their own lives."

just out of curiosity, what people are you referring to here and how do you know it is a fact?

as for funny political poems:

check out Calvin Trillin to see if you like his sense of humour.
[www.thenation.com] /> the blue links:
[www.thenation.com] />
Ogden Nash may have some funny political poems. Anyway, he has lots of funny ones.

I don't know if you like satire as a kind of humour, but I do, and there is plenty around. Check out Robert Browning, Johnatan Swift, Alexander Pope, to name just a few. And these are extremely famous for the fact that they did not, in fact, commit suicide of any sort.

Chuck, there really are some funny poems, if you know where to look. Take this one for example:

Thesaurus
---Billy Collins

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Les

Oh, thanks for posting you changed my mood!

Jenny

My Goodness! Well, the people I'm refering to are poets and authors generally of course, and I'm not refering to a statistical fact but an empirical one: I know it's a fact because I've been frantically reading poets' and writers' biographies to see if my life and theirs match which would be a devine sign to me telling me that it's never too late and that I have plenty of time left (Some started writing at the age of eight!) Stupid of one but it does offer hope. A morsel of hope. A fake morsel possibly
Some poets didn't just kill themselves, some were found dead under mysterious circumstances, and others were simply cursed!

-William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) died of sunstroke (of all possible things to happen to one)
-Edward Coate Pinkney (1802-1828) he just died at 26
-Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) his wife died in 1847 and just a few days before he was to remarry, Poe died
-John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) injured in a railway accident in 1874 never fully recovered. In the next few days his wife, 3 daughters and eldest son all died. Saxe lived the remained of his life as a recluse.
-Henry Timrod (1828-1867) poverty, disease died of consumption at 38 (but this was probably a sign of the age, not many cures for common illnesses now back then)
-Ben King (1857-1894) found dead in his hotel room. Hmm.
-Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) lived in seclusion until her suicide
-Anne Sexton (1928-1974) Suicide
-Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Suicide
-Thomas Chatterton (1752-1769) Suicide. At 17.
-Sapho. Who was Greek so the climate doesn't explain it but still Suicide.

And plenty more, but this is too macabre an issue to be dealing with for so long. Notice that most of the ones that wrote funny or satirical poetry Didn't commit suicide? (kidding)

Ogden yes, yes, yes. Pope maybe. Browing no.

I'm sorry Jenny, but you say it is an empirical fact that 80% of all poets and authors committed suicide and/or were cursed?

I mean if you take accidents and diseases as examples that they were cursed, you may extend your remark to the rest of humankind. Finally everyone dies, and not always nicely in our beds of old age.

I have to agree with Desi here that you can't call it a "fact". I think that the poetry world tends to get that image, painted by those who don't read much poetry. Bad news is news, and that's what outsiders know about. But certainly, everyone here, except for some of those obsessed suicide poem seekers who pop in every other day, knows that there are many sides and facets to poetry.