A venti cup
Credit: Mo Morrissey | ©Mo Morrissey
A View of the Economy Through the Lens of a Coffee Cup
"I'll have a grande latte, but please put it in a venti cup." I wonder what that says. I suppose there could be all kinds of reasons someone would want a bigger cup for their coffee - and for those who aren't in the know, yes, "venti" is larger than "grande" - but I think there's a larger message there.The woman in front of me at the coffee shop today ordered her coffee in one size, but requested a larger cup. The thought immediately struck me - I wonder if that were emblematic of how our economy got here.
The luxury goods, wrapped up in a sleek package, often holding less that their capacity and certainly more than we should buy. The big white cup, only half full. The huge SUV when an intermediate sedan would have accomplished the trick. The 72" plasma screen. The 3,400 square foot home in that desirable neighborhood for a family of 3...well 4 if you include the dog. The stuff we have bought with our credit line.
Sometimes I wonder about that. It's kind of funny - really. The 1980's were all about the Gordon Gekko "Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good" sort of conspicuous consumption. We saw an explosion of new luxury brands in automobiles. Michael Milken's junk bonds, Carl Ichan and the pillaging of Eastern Airlines, and Ivan Boesky's insider trading. What we saw in the 1990's was recession and an apparent "back to basics" ethic. Which lasted about a week.
We have spent the better part of the last decade rebuilding the monolith of the 1980s - the stock market crested up over 14,000, SUV's proliferated, those tv's and gaming systems and everything else the last few years have brought us. Cheap goods from emerging economies, massive credit card bills, low interest rates, and adjustable mortgages on homes we couldn't otherwise afford. Instead of Boesky, we have Bernie Madoff. The players change, the game doesn't seem to.
Comments
My friends, don't read too much into why someone might want a less-than-full coffee cup. The idea is a little larger than that. The idea is an analogy for a larger commentary.
lol I found this interesting, but also thought immediately "she just wants more room in her cup"...I didn't put as much thought into it as the poster below me, I just figured she didn't want it to slosh up and spill on her. Funny b/c I just argued with my husband this evening about bringing me a full cup of something
I had asked for only a half cup of. My reason was so I could drink it in bed while I read and I didn't want to have to pay so much attention to not spill every time I moved my hand a little. anyway, nice write up!!
Matt Brundage
(Guest)
(Guest)
03/19/2009
The author is reading too much into the "larger cup" phenomenon. Usually, a customer requests a larger cup when they intend to add milk or cream. If a barista fills a cup to the brim, the customer must pour some of the liquid into the trash before adding milk. This is, of course, a waste of coffee and money!
Also, many baristas tend to underestimate the amount of coffee they are pouring when faced with the "x coffee in a y cup" request. Thus, the customer will -- more often than not -- get a couple more ounces of coffee when requesting a larger cup size.
If she is asking for the larger cup to make people think she can still afford the bigger cup, then I might say that is a shallow person.
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