…When They Pry My Cold Dead Fingers From The Mug
An incredibly condescending article in the Washington Post on Javanomics.
At a Starbucks across the street from Seattle University School of Law, Kirsten Daniels crams for the bar exam. She’s armed with color-coded pens, a don’t-mess-with-me crease in her brow and what she calls “my comfort latte.”
She just graduated summa cum laude , after three years of legal training that left her $115,000 in debt. Part of that debt, which she will take a decade to repay with interest, was run up at Starbucks, where she buys her lattes.
Part of the $115,000 debt Kirsten Daniels of Seattle incurred to finance law school went toward her regular caffeine fix.
The habit costs her nearly $3 a day, and it’s one that her law school says she and legions like her cannot afford.
David Adesnik fisks this with both barrels, and the result is lovely. As the Man says, read the whole thing.
What an interfering, nosey-assed article.
To quantify the craziness, Lim distributes coffee-consumption charts. One shows that a five-day-a-week $3 latte habit on borrowed money can cost $4,154, when repaid over 10 years. She also directs students to a Web site she helped create. The “Stop Buying Expensive Coffee and Save Calculator” ( http://www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi ) shows that if you made your own coffee and for 30 years refrained from buying a $3 latte, you could save $55,341 (with interest).
Inside the Starbucks across from the law school, Daniels seemed surprised — but unmoved — to hear all this. “I guess I never had done the math,” she said. “On the other hand, I would be a very crabby person without my comfort latte.”
Therein lies the rub for those who would curb latte consumption with pocketbook reasoning. As Lim concedes, “no one pays any attention.”
Perhaps because you are a fool. Who needs internet? Who needs parking? Who needs counselors? Toilet paper? Wouldn’t the money be better spent elsewhere? Why don’t you just STFU and let people decide where, when, and how to spend their money? And yes, it’s their money even if borrowed.
Asshat.
Nanny State | Mr. Bingley | 
June 20, 2005 12:17 pm
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Gotta love the $ nannies….save us from ourselves!
I don’t have this problem, mainly because I likes my coffee like I likes my Denzel.
Hot and black.
Heh.
I should sue A&P for the free coffee at work that I got addicted to. That should be worth some $$.
As Lim concedes, “no one pays any attention.”
Except the media peon who wrote this article, clearly with some sympathy. Another asshat.
It’s all part of the zionist java plot, JeffS.