The fact that Starbucks thrives selling $3 coffee tells you what an almost embarassingly rich country America has become thanks to rejecting socialism and embracing destructive productivity enhancements.

Gee, I feel like a frigging idiot for brewing my own coffee in law school. I even had a coffee machine at my carrel in the library, so I could stay awake while working for the law review.

$115,000 debt coming out of law school -- if there is any story in that article, that should be it. Want to work as a prosecutor or public defender with a $100K+ in debts to pay off? Good luck!

As for coffee, if they want to buy coffee, they should buy coffee. If people don't consume, they don't have the incentive to earn money to pay for their consumption. If everyone wants 3000 sq ft. houses in exurbia, you gotta pay for em!

If you take any daily or monthly expense, of course it adds up over time. I wonder how many grad students are making car payments (Carnomics 101, buy a subcompact not an SUV!), buying gas (same), paying rent (rent a studio not a 2br!), have cable (break out those rabbit ears!), reading a paper (read it online!), buying clothes (salvation army!), and so on.

No, no, forget all that . . . Evil Starbucks, that should be on page 1. Yes, very, very, evil.

Well, a Starbucks habit can be expensive, but they chose some odd context to make their point.

If everyone wants 3000 sq ft. houses in exurbia, you gotta pay for em!

I've got one of those, and I do. Still balk at the $3 coffee tho.

As balk you should!

Okay, so a Starbuck's habit is $3. That's IF you get your Starbucks in a paper cup to go, from the barista. If you buy a pound of Starbucks coffee, (let's say $15), and brew your own, you've cut your per-day cost to around $1 (a pound of coffee generally lasts me about two weeks.) So what that law student was actually paying for was convenience.

Now let's go a little further: You can get supermarket whole-bean coffee for something like $7 per pound, dropping the per-day expense to $.50. You can get mass-market coffee, like Folgers or Maxwell House for something like $4 per pound ($.29/day), and if you're really desperate, you can get Cafe Bustello, which is something like $2 per pound ($.14 per day)

So, adding it up, we're looking at $.15 for palatability, $.21 for actual flavor, $.50 for brand-snob appeal, and $2.00 for service. So really, only that last $.14 has anything to do with a caffeine habit.

Well, $2.00 for service and atmosphere - namely, the atmosphere of a place that lets you sit around and loiter for 3 hours while you study.