SOCIALISM You have two cows. You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM You have two cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM You have two cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.
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 CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.
CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
SWISS CORPORATION You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.
BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. A hedge fund holds title to both the cows and the field but you have a Credit Default Swap Certificate with J.P.Morgan Chase.
FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
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. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.
GERMAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION 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 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.
AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them.

NAZISM You have two cows. The State takes both and shoots you.
BUREAUCRATISM You have two cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...
SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

The Swedish and German economies are in good shape but England is a disaster waiting to be disclosed. Its currency is held aloft by spin and dodgy dossiers cobbled together by its money laundering and killingry businesses that so pollute the wells of global commerce...and in the 21st century the polluter is going to have to pay. France is in no better state.

Meanwhile the debts of America's funny money diseased economy are in the grubby hands of the governing classes in China and Japan...with the spivs of Washington and Wall Street in cahoots with the Fundamentalists of Texas and Tel Aviv to keep the world that way...see Bill Bonner's Empire of Debt for further details.

In 2008 I'll be keeping clear of the American dollar because of the strange rumblings about replacing it...and the Canadian dollar and the Mexican Peso...with the Amero. Instead I'll be betting on the collapse of the pound and the strength of German inductry. For several years the gun-running, money-laundering and bullshit economy of the Brits has been going from strength to strength sending the Britpound soaring to a ten-year high with markets pricing it at more than twice the dollar. Value of course is something else again. And the euro has been keeping pace with the madness of the overpriced pound...to such an extent that by the end of 2007 the Britpound was at its lowest ever against the euro.

And so to 2008 where it may be that once I am familiar with the intricacies of the technical side of online spread-betting my friends will be given the chance to hazard their own family's money by sharing in my Swedish and German speculations. If I go this route then we will do it the old way...by commenda...about which there will be further details in some forthcoming posting. Here are my Swedish and German betting strategies.

Sweden: The exchange rate between the Swedish kronor and the English pound has bobbed up and down between 6 and 16 over the past 30 years...that's one hell of a range...both currencies are outside the euro...at the end of 2006 I got 14 for my pound and by the end of 2007 I still got 13. But it won't lats. On purchasing parity it should be below 10...and the bullshit is varnishing fast. So the prediction is 8-9.

Germany: The euro has helped Germany assimilate her eastern provinces following the fall of the Berlin Wall...enlargement has moved the goal posts...the euro is much too broad a church to hazard money on...it could go anywhere as it muscles in on America's fading oil dollar hegemony.

So the strategy is to keep clear of the German currency and back the German economy...by building a list of the top European multinationals and ranking them in terms of their exposure to the German, British, American economies etc. Spread bets will then be placed on a portfolio of half a dozen companies...half a dozen is enough...there is a law of diminishing returns on portfolio risk spreading after this.

During the first quarter I'll be getting the hang of charting and stop-loss strategies and honing my timing skills...come the second quarter I'll start gambling heavily on my own account...by the third quarter I'll be ready to take a leaf out of the Fitzdares book...more on Jimmy Goldsmith's millions in future web logs...by inviting my friends to bet with me...and then (before setting off for four months in Arizona on Guy Fawkes Day 2008) I'll unwind my positions and move my well-gotten gains into Devon woodlands and Gotland cottages...A Good Year's Pay for a Good Year's Work.

My father William Franklin was a trade union man who looked after the civil servants working for the Ministry of Defence at the Woolwich Arsenal...masons and not communists were his main problem...this was his day job...he did it well...so well in fact that he was blacklisted and never promoted...this did not endear him to my mother...whose day (and night) job was to make ends meet and bring up her four boys to be good middle-class citizens striving for success.

However on race nights (Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays) my father moonlighted behind the betting desk with William Hill at Catford Greyhound Stadium...I wish now that he had shown me the ropes...he also studied form when my mother wasn't looking...and broke even on his betting...or so my father assured his wife.

But my mother was not convinced and confiscated the bulk of his earnings the moment he brought them home each month...her father had not approved of the marriage...there were rumours of some dubious goings-on at the Royal Mint where my father and two of his brothers once worked...only after his death did my mother discover that my grandfather's misgivings were not without foundation...it turned out that my father had been declaring only half of his earnings at William Hill to my mother for much of their married life.

In 2006 I decided to resurrect the family tradition...but betting on economies instead of dogs and gee-gees. I am not interested in breaking even...and have no intention of bankrupting myself. I am in this for the money...if I am so smart why aren't I rich? Just so...I will be.

But betting 21sr Century style means spread betting. Winnings from spread betting are tax-free...just like wins on the horses with 20th Century betting. IG Index will be my work-horse.

The Bank of England was founded in 1694.

William Shepherd lives and works in Rye. His paper Energy - a long wave perspective was presented at the annual convention of the Association of Eastern Economists in Philadelphia in 1981. The article Energy Wars was published in Fourth World Review in 2002. The Politics of Wind Farming was published in the December 2005 issue of Rye’s Own . Below are edited extracts from the Rye’s Own article.

RWE is an enormous power and utilities conglomerate with an annual turnover of five billion pounds. RWE has devised a series of cunning plans to exploit the gaping holes in New Labour's regulatory regimes of the energy and water sectors and does so most efficiently for the benefit of German shareholders and to the considerable detriment of the long-suffering residents and tax-payers of the English Home Counties.

Half of RWE's operations are in Germany and a fifth in the United Kingdom where it trades under such brand names as Thames Water, Yorkshire Electricity and Npower. In an article in the Daily Mail on Friday 28th October 2005, the columnist Andrew Alexander recommended that those who feel strongly about the beauty of our waning countryside should avoid buying their water, electricity or gas through or from RWE.

RWE's Annual Report comes out on 23rd February 2006. Order your copy from www.rwe.com or talk to RWE's spin doctors on +49 1801 451280.

But why not buy a few shares in the company? It's a small price to pay for saving paradise. Invite yourself to the company's annual general meeting in Essen on 13th April 2006.

And while you have your broker on the line, instruct her to buy shares in Doughty Hanson, the turbine blade manufacturer. Rumour has it that Nigel Doughty is a major contributor to New Labour's party funds. Now there's a surprise.

How much energy do we really need? Well the answer is: 'Not a lot!' Lie in the sun for half an hour and you will find out. You might not have got all the energy you need for a year, but your planet has. The sun showers the earth with all the energy our species generates in the course of one year in just half an hour.

Have you ever got up early in the morning to watch the earth go down as the sun smacks night time clean out of the sky? That's power. How puny are our human needs in comparison. But what actually are these needs? They come in three easy to understand forms: to heat up space, to rush ourselves and our stuff around and to wind things up.

We hardly ever need to be warmer than our own body temperatures so boiling a nuclear kettle to the sort of silly numbers best kept ninety three million miles away in the centre of the sun is about as loopy as it gets. Insulation is the name of the space heating game. Once you have it, don't lose it.

Most of our rushing around is unnecessary and counterproductive. Food miles are a case in point. Who needs them? Slow is beautiful and the future is still.

As for winding things up. We're doing more and more with less and less. Wind-up laptops will soon be all the rage following fast on the heels of wind-up torches and wind-up radios. Electricity use will go down not up over the next few decades. So much for the demand side of the equation.

What about supply? This sceptered isle is surrounded by sea. Free energy on tap and ours for the harvesting. Tide mills and wave power should be the English way to energy self-sufficiency.

Romney Marsh on the Kent-Sussex border is one of the most beautiful lowland areas in Britain with a magic all of its own. On the coast, it is bordered by the exquisite ancient towns of Rye and Winchelsea. Outside the towns, the roads and lanes, flanked by rich hedgerows, wind through charming villages and hamlets and fine farmland often heavy with grazing sheep.

Beautiful small and even tiny churches, sited on spots now largely deserted, have inspired travel writers by their neat, simple interiors. The area is a home to many rare birds and a vital migratory route in the spring and autumn attracting bird watchers from all over the world.

Slicing up flocks of Canadian geese as they wing their way across Romney Marsh is one way to keep bird flu at bay. But this underestimates avian intelligence. Migrating birds only fly along the English shipping lanes because the French peasants are gunning for them on the other side of the channel. Birds are quick learners which is more than can be said for the human species.

Take this silly idea of farming the wind. For those who go down to the sea in a sailboat the first lesson is how to put up your sail. Next you get taught the fine nautical art of spilling wind. Your problem is too much wind not too little.

But if you insist on farming the wind then let me give you a hint. If you are old enough you may remember the cluster of cooling towers at Ferrybridge. They collapsed. There was a Commission of Inquiry. 'It was the wind wot did it. Honest m'lud!'

But not just the wind. It was the lay-out of the cooling towers that was the root cause of the collapse. Unwittingly the designers had exceeded their brief and created a wind factory. Meanwhile the younger ones among my readers might like to reflect on why the skyscraper city of Chicago is called the windy city. Bernoulli is the correct answer. He discovered that fluids flow and that the shape of the containing vessel is what really matters. Our little local worlds can be shaped to suit the needs of our turbines. There is no need to put them hundreds of feet in the air at the end of long poles. Bring wind to your turbines instead of taking your turbines to the wind.

Let me introduce you to a group of gentlemen with names like Roels, Fischer, Schneider, Bonekamp, Maichel and Sturany who inhabit the supervisory board of RWE, an enormous power and utilities conglomerate with an annual turnover of five billion pounds.

The Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm these barbarians plan to build on Romney Marsh is not about wind power or renewable energy or even economic efficiency but about the black hole in the accounts of the RWE Aktiengesellschaft , a company which stealthily hides the de-commissioning costs of its nuclear power plants from public gaze by the sleight of hand of ‘net present value’ mis-accounting.

Mssrs. Roels & Co believe their salvation is in offloading their loss-making German landfill sites and seeking shareholder nirvana in the Garden Of England far away from the shrewd German regulatory regime for energy providers.

In Germany it is impossible for scorched earth operators like RWE to do what the ignorant pillars of the British Establishment encourage. Welcome to Romney Marsh all ye carbon polluters. No need for your shares to go into freefall. Erect a forest of monstrous towers each twice as tall as Nelson's Column. Collect your free carbon credits each time you pass GO.

Indeed let us pay your construction costs out of the public purse. Our English house-owners expect to be taxed until the pips squeak. They have become used to it. Trade your way out of financial disaster. Why do it unprofitably in your own backyard when you can destroy beauty profitably far far away on the other side of the English Channel?

more from Shepherd on Climate

In 2006 William Franklin will be seeking profitable opportunities to speculate in the share price movements of European power companies...eg. the Essen-based RWE and the Swedish-based Vattenfall. The financial pages of The Independent made the following remarks on Wednesday 11th January 2006.

The future of Scottish & Southern Energy was a major talking point in City dealing rooms yesterday. Shares in the power group jumped 7.5p to 1017p on speculation of a bid for the company from Vattenfall, the Swedish state-owned utility. Vattenfall already has operations abroad - mainly in Germany, Poland and Finland - and is said to be keen to expand in the UK.

Citigroup argued that Scottish & Southern represents an excellent strategic asset for anyone looking to make a major move into the UK utility sector. But it warned that the Swedish group will have to pay top dollar if it is to win the company. The US broker said: ‘Scottish & Southern is highly regarded by its shareholders and is fiercely independent. Therefore, any acquirer would likely have to pay a significant control premium.’

Citigroup pointed out that RWE bought Innogy on a rating of 11 times earnings in 2002. Should Vattenfall decide to pay a similar valuation for Scottish & Southern, it would ahve to spend 1397p a share for control of the group - a 38 percent premium to the stock’s current level. of course, Vattenfall could also target Scottish Power, up 4.5p to 540.5p, which recently rebuffed a 570p share bid from Germany’s E.ON.

Shares in ABB (Asea-Brown-Boveri) the Swedish-Swiss multinational went into freefall in 2001 and 2002 but recovered steadily during 2003. The shares were trading at 85 kronor on Monday 6th January 2006...half of their 2001 peak price of 190 SEK but well above their lowest price in the last quarter of 2002.

On Monday 9th January 2006 the Swedish Krona stood at 13.627 to the UK Pound Sterling. The trend over the past four years has been a strengthening of the Swedish Krona against the UK Pound from its peak of 16 at the end of 2001 to the middle of 2003 after which it has remained in the 13-14 range. Here is the five-year picture.