“Just What I Always Wanted … A Chestnut Praline Latte.”

This Christmas Eve Day, Starbucks is poised to again break its own record sale of over 2 million gift cards--that’s 1,500 Starbucks gift cards purchased per minute, the most popular last minute gift for procrastinators.

Over the course of the last year, 4 billion dollars have been spent on Starbucks gift cards. For some perspective that’s:

• The GDP of Malawi
• The value of the Real Madrid soccer team
• The cost of all spending during the United States midterm elections
• The amount that the European Union brokered in behalf of gas supply for Ukraine this winter
• The value of Chinese equipment exports that will build a 1400km railway in Nigeria