Posted on 10/21/2008 4:02:28 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Will Your Recession Be Tall, Grande, or Venti?
The more Starbucks a country has, the bigger its financial problems.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Monday, Oct. 20, 2008, at 6:04 PM ET
Remember Thomas Friedman's McDonald's theory of international relations? The thinking was that if two countries had evolved into prosperous, mass-consumer societies, with middle classes able to afford Big Macs, they would generally find peaceful means of adjudicating disputes. They'd sit down over a Happy Meal to resolve issues rather than use mortars. The recent unpleasantries between Israel and Lebanon, which both have McDonald's operations (here and here, respectively) put paid to that reasoning. But the Golden Arches theory of realpolitik was good while it lasted.
In the same spirit, I propose the Starbucks theory of international economics. The higher the concentration of expensive, nautically themed, faux-Italian-branded Frappuccino joints in a country's financial capital, the more likely the country is to have suffered catastrophic financial losses.
It may sound doppio, but work with me. This recent crisis has its roots in the unhappy coupling of a frenzied nationwide real-estate market centered in California, Las Vegas, and Florida, and a nationwide credit mania centered in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
The birthplace of Starbucks, Seattle, has its own financial disaster case, WaMu, even though Seattle is not exactly a financial hub.
So the less we have so-called pro-market social liberals, crawling in Silicon Valley and Wall St., we have, the better off we are. The less third way globalist financial whiz we have, the better off we are.
So, I ask the Slate to kill off all their subscriber base and close down the magazine, then America may have a hope.:-)
Ping!
Their coffee is overpriced and tastes burnt, and you have to learn all these gay sounding words just to order. People that buy coffee there do it out of peer pressure mostly.
I’ll take a 7-11 coffee any day.
The 37 yo hedge fund manager who just retired, had some pointed comments about people like this- the Ivy League morons.
Ridiculous. Did they do a study on how many McDonald’s, Burger Kings, etc. This is the dumbest article I think every put on Free Republic.
No, seriously, think about it: There are no Starbucks in Iceland. What else would explain why Reykjavik hasn't been infected with the dire financial contagion presently sweeping the globe?
= )
How many Starbucks’ are in Zimbabwe?
That’s a joke....right? My Sarcometer is turned off so I can’t tell.
If you're trying to get money from the Russians, it's pretty much "game over".
I have never seen a poor person in line at Starbucks.
Isn’t that racist?
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