Alex.Tango.Fuego: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Back to the Start - Willie Nelson & Chipotle Grill

The video below is an advertisement for Chipotle Grill - but the message is clear - getting back to sustainable agriculture/food - and away from industrialized food production. I find it interesting that I chose the three pigs' photograph for my last post, with a different message in mind for that one.

Gotta love a good segue. Oh, and buy the song on iTunes. Proceeds go to The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. Here is the press release, and here is the foundation's website.

It feels good to hear about one more company doing the right thing and doing the thing right - putting their money where their mouth is. Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. Placing people right there alongside profits. Recognizing that being green and sustainable not only can be and should be, but *is* profitable. And, not to mention, it's the right and very necessary thing to do/way to be. Sustainability is ultimately about the survival of the planet - and all of us critters who inhabit it. It's pretty simple if you just remove the greed component from a corporate culture.

Coldplay's haunting classic 'The Scientist' is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, "Back to the Start." The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

Download the song "The Scientist" by Willie Nelson now available on iTunes for $0.99. Label and artist proceeds benefit The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-scientist-single/id458479961

Friday, August 26, 2011

The Deficit Tango or, The Federal Budget Put in Simpler Terms

(Note: the best part of this post is all the way down at the bottom...)

Sorry folks, but no, this is not my post about how much my tango has cost me over the past seven years. Or is it eight? I dunno. Some day I may get around to writing that post. It would be an interesting one, especially when you factor in lost opportunity costs and loss of profit. I get this nagging retro rearview don't want to look at it was it all a dream feeling that my tango came at great cost to me. HUGE investment. The return on that investment? Hmm. You'll have to stay tuned whilst I ponder and cipher on that one. And I'm not talking about greenbacks. Well, maybe kindasorta that too. Whatever. But I digress. (grin)

This one is about Warren Buffet's op-ed in the New York Times about the super-wealthy getting preferential treatment by Congress and not paying enough taxes. I haven't actually read it yet, but I wanted to post it before I get too far down the road and forget.

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

And then there's this little tidbit from Warren - thanks to La Reina for sending it to me:

The Federal Budget put in simpler terms...

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is, so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000

• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385