Starbucks to solve that whole fiscal cliff thing with a slogan

This will solve everything (Sahil Kapur) This message is brought to you by Starbucks President and CEO Howard Schultz, who goes by the uber-cryptic blogger name Howard S. And please note, it is not a joke. I repeat, this is not a joke:

In the spirit of the Holiday season and the Starbucks tradition of bringing people together, we have a unique opportunity to unite and take action on an incredibly important topic. As many of you know, our elected officials in Washington D.C. have been unable to come together and compromise to solve the tremendously important, time-sensitive issue to fix the national debt. You can learn more about this impending crisis at www.fixthedebt.org.

Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity'and I believe a responsibility'to use our company's scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue. This week through December 28, partners in our Washington D.C. area stores are writing 'Come Together' on customers' cups.

It's a small gesture, but the power of small gestures is what Starbucks is about! Imagine the power of our partners and hundreds of thousands of customers each sharing such a simple message, one cup at a time.

Look, it's a real nice idea that the baristas of America will now be compelled by company policy to single-handedly solve all of our problems by scrawling some super-deep messages on coffee cups throughout the beltway. Heck, let's hope it works. Let's hope that the only thing standing between Republicans and Democrats right now and this whole fiscal catastrophe that's supposedly coming right for us is a hastily scrawled slogan on a coffee cup, and if we can just get those two words into the right congressional hands, all will be well.

Or maybe, just maybe, we should hope that our government isn't run by such incomprehensibly stupid and suggestible people that all that stands between us and this whole fiscal catastrophe that's supposedly coming right for us is a hastily scrawled slogan on a coffee cup. And maybe Starbucks should just stick to selling overpriced burnt coffee.