More Starbucks = more financial crisis. Really?

I am no fan of Starbucks. The last time I went on my own to buy a cup of coffee--whatever they call them sizes--was .... I don't remember when! I blogged earlier about the many, many takes on Starbucks. Frankly, I don't care a damn about Starbucks--it is like the adult stores by the freeways. Hey, I don't care for them, and if there are those who want to get stuff there, well, more power to them as long as nobody hassles me.

But, I do like intelligent and innovative takes on Starbucks. Which is why I liked this piece where the idea is simple: "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."
Pretty simple the idea, eh! I wish I had taken the trouble to correlate the location of Starbucks outlets with the real estate data and banks .... Some of these commentators are smart--unlike the motor mouths on talk radio and TV who spin the same ideological crap over and over and over .... Anyway, the theory is:

Having a significant Starbucks presence is a pretty significant indicator of the degree of connectedness to the form of highly caffeinated, free-spending capitalism that got us into this mess. It's also a sign of a culture's willingness to abandon traditional norms and ways of doing business (virtually all the countries in which Starbucks has established beachheads have their own venerable coffee-house traditions) in favor of fast-moving American ones. The fact that the company or its local licensee felt there was room for dozens of outlets where consumers would pony up lots of euros, liras, and rials for expensive drinks is also a pretty good indicator that excessive financial
optimism had entered the bloodstream.