AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM YOUR TAXICAB DRIVER ABOUT PAYING WITH PLASTIC

OKAY, FOLKS. I'LL GET RIGHT TO THE POINT. DESPITE WHAT YOU SEE IN THOSE GODDAMN VISA COMMERCIALS WHERE THE CAB DRIVER SMILES BECAUSE HE'S SO DAMNED HAPPY TO BE PAID WITH A CREDIT CARD, I CAN ASSURE YOU THIS IS BULLSHIT. WE CAB DRIVERS HATE BEING PAID IN ANYTHING BUT CASH. IF YOU ARE WONDERING WHY THIS IS, READ FURTHER.

First thing is, hacking a cab is a CASH BUSINESS!
All our expenses have to be paid in cash. Gasoline, lunch. oil changes, maintenance, tow trucks (God forbid) and emergency repairs CANNOT BE PAID FOR WITH THAT FUCKING SLIP OF PAPER YOU SIGN.

Well then, turn it in at the cab company for cash, you say.
Ho, ho, ho. If a driver turns in a credit slip, and he has fees due the company in the next few days, they apply the money to the fees. If the fees are less than the amount of the credit card slips, they write him a check at the end of the week. This does him no good if he has to pay for a brake job right NOW.
Speaking of fees, the cab company charges a 5% (or more) processing fee to the drivers, and this applies to the entire amount including the tip. It is to them just another way to screw us over.

Next thing is, you say "convenience"? Convenience, my ass.
It really chaps my ass when some airhead takes a cab ride to some busy club downtown, and with all the hurly-burly outside the club and valets and cops yelling move, move; pulls out a goddamn card that I have to zip , get signed and then run through the computer. I can make change for ten fares in the time it takes to process your piece-of-shit plastic. Time is money. Thanks a pantload for wasting mine.

"Plastic money" is an insidious threat to liberty. Really.
First thing, EVERY TIME you pay with plastic, there is a permanent record made somewhere of where you just were and what you just did. Wonder why you get all that junk mail? Now you know.
Second, not having to actually see the money you are spending divorces you from reality. That's what a lot of merchants count on. The bank loves it too, because it rolls up those fees. And all this encouragement to use credit/debit cards is aimed at eventually replacing hard currency with plastic. Once that happens the government will be able to determine exactly what everyone has, where they got it, from whom; as well as how much money you have, and to the penny. Feel good about that? (If the answer is "yes" then you are a fucking IDIOT)

Oh, and you minority folks who say "Here mah credicks card" and hand me a debit card: You are not fooling anybody. It's a debit card.

So everybody, stop with the giving cab drivers plastic. We want MONEY. Pay with MONEY. Got it? MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.