NY CABBIES GET THE ROYAL SHAFT

 by Howard E. Morseburg

   BRIBERY, EXTORTION BECOMES PART OF THE YELLOW CAB SYSTEM IN BIG APPLE  

The $3,000 cost for the equipment is only the beginning, because for every transaction on plastic the banks will deduct additional 5% of the meter price.  It's as if they were being personally charged a Sales Tax on every fare.  To collect $20, the cabbies will pay $1.00.  That is off the top, before their expenses.   Their actual costs will run closer to 10% of their take home pay.  Thanks Commissioner!  Thanks!

Once again the Credit Card Cartel  has won out.  Once again the Credit Card Cartel has raided a little African-type village named Yellow Cab Co., and put the yoke of slavery around the necks of every person there.  Once again the Credit Card Cartel has pressured a government, this time the New York City government, to put another group of workers under their rigid control.  The old time New York cabbies knew what the Mafia was like, but now they've got a far more ruthless organization taking control of their lives.

There are 13,000 cabs in New York, perhaps 25,000 drivers, that have been captured in a single raid, and the yoke of slavery is now around their necks.  They will now contribute to the welfare of the CEOs of American Express, Visa, MasterCard and Discover Card.  If their kids don't have shoes or food, that won't worry those CEOs at all. 

The Mafia were gentlemen compared to the ruthless thugs that make up the banking world today.  The Mafia at least knew they were crooks, even while protesting their innocence, but these big-shot bankers play their games with Senators, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors, who change the laws to suit the needs and wishes of the Credit Card Cartel, legalizing these criminal-type activities.   However, a bribe offered and a bribe accepted is still an illegal act of bribery. You may call is mordida in Mexico, baksheesh in the Middle East, or Air Miles in the U.S., but they're all of the same ilk, bribes. 

From now on the credit card equipment and Air Miles (or Awards) will become an important facet in the life of every New York Cabbie and severely impact his earnings.  The Cabbies are going to be taken for a ride in their own cabs, one they'll not be able to forget.

FORCED SERVITUDE, SLAVERY, INDENTURED SERVANTS, INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE

You can select one name or the other, but it all amounts to about the same thing, being forced to give up your independence and ability to make your own choices, as well as a good part of your profits, to the Credit Card Cartel, being commanded, directed, compelled by the Taxi Commissioner to pay undue amounts into the coffers of the banking industry with little or no benefit to the cabbies. 

If the New York Yellow cab system has functioned on a cash basis for years, then why change it?  Is it because the Mayor or the Commissioner owns huge amounts of stock in Citibank or Wells Fargo,  and is heavily invested in the industry?  Or is it because his rich friends want to accumulate the points or air miles so heavily advertised by the industry?

Plastic use is time consuming and expensive, contrary to the advertising by the industry.  Standing in a grocery store line, waiting for someone to finish a plastic transaction is different than standing in the rain, snow or cold wind while someone is inside the cab swiping a piece of plastic through a slot, then showing a piece of identification, then signing the receipt, all requirements by the industry. 

STOLEN CARDS, FORGED CARDS AND EXPIRED OR INCORRECT CARDS

Try examining identification in the dim light of a cab in a rain storm while someone is waiting to climb in the cab.  Try looking at a small picture on a driver's license of a bearded man and compare it to the bearded man sitting in the back seat.  If the cabbie fails to do it, he could be hit with a huge charge-back.  As it is, the money is removed from the cabbie's account first; he is charged back.  Then cabbies have to fight to get it back from the bank.  They have to prove that they did the correct thing and are guilty until proven innocent.  Some people will even deny that they rode in the cab.  You can have their signatures and they'll deny it's theirs.  You can hand them merchandise in broad daylight and they'll deny they ever bought the item.

What was the amount of the fare, fifty or sixty dollars?  It is removed from the cabbie's bank account FIRST.  The time he'll spend on the telephone trying to rectify the matter will eat into his profits, take away from his family time, get him angry at home.  If he is an East Asian and does not know the proper procedures, he's in further trouble.  Often he's dealing with a nineteen or twenty year old woman who knows little about the realities of business, but who is trained to resist all efforts to make the bank pay the loss.  It can take an hour or multiple calls to resolve the issue, and then, it may wrongfully go against the cabbie.  (I once had $1,800 wrongfully removed from my bank account on a credit card transaction and never got it back.)  

If it is the IRS that is behind these efforts to that they can keep more careful track of driver's earnings, then let them pay the 5% credit card fee.     

THE SOLUTION: ADD THE CREDIT CARD FEE OF 7% TO 10% TO THE FARE

In order to take home the same amount of pay and not lose from $30 to $100 a week bank charges to the Credit & Charge Card Cartel, Cabbies must add their actual losses when a passenger uses a plastic card in lieu of a paying cash-. 

It is allowable to do so, no matter what the Cartel tells you.  The I.R.S. does it.  They add the bank charges to the amount of taxes due them.  Why does the I.R.S. have an exemption from the normal rules, and only the I.R.S.    Why then can't the Cabbies do it?  Since the 5% is on the gross amount collected, then the Cabbie must add from 7% to 10% to make up the difference.  If the individual Cabbie has not signed a credit card contract, then he has not agreed to the terms of the Cartel, which forbid adding such charges.  But again, if those who use credit cards to pay taxes willingly fork up the fees, then it is well established that they can and will make up the difference to Cabbies as well.

CABBIE KAMRAN NAYAB IS SOOOO VERY RIGHT!

"Passengers don't need it, drivers don't need it, just the city and some money-making friends need it,” said taxi driver Kamran Nayab. During the strike, cabs that are on duty will go to a "zone fare" system where they pick up more than one passenger. Passengers will pay $10 apiece to start, plus $5 for each additional zone they drive through. (from: HackshotNYC.blogspot.com)  Jan.14, 2008

SHOULDN'T DRIVERS BE PAID FOR THESE COMMERCIALS TOO?

"Most of the passengers get in and if they are not computer literate, they can’t find how to turn off the monitor, because they have designed it so that they don't want passengers to turn it off because it would defeat the whole purpose of their commercials,” said taxi driver John McDonagh. “So they can't turn it off, so they are spending time doing that, they are not giving me the directions. I can’t hear them because the noise of the commercial is so loud." (from HackshotNYC.blogspot.com)

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION -

 On Dec. 16, 1773, three British ships were boarded in Boston harbor, the Beaver, the Eleanor, and the Dartmouth, and their cargoes of tea, all forty-five tons of it, were dumped overboard into the dark waters below.  The Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, were the perpetrators, and so two hundred and thirty years ago a war began over a very simple principle, No Taxation without Representation!

That same principle, that same spirit, is involved today in the dispute between the Cabbies of New York and Commissioner Daus, only this time it is further reaching and more onerous, because instead of being a tax upon a single product, tea, it is a tax upon a good portion of the Cabbies' earnings.  Had the Colonists faced a tax of such proportions then, they'd would not only have dumped part of those ships' cargoes in the water, but they would have burned every British ship along the coast from Portland, Maine to Boston harbor and on down to New York.

What this amounts to is a 5% tax on their earnings.  It is a tax upon the gross dollars they take in, not the net as with most government taxes.  It can be viewed in no other light. 

The Cabbies, in spite of vociferous objections, in spite of strikes, have been over-ruled by the Lord of Jackasses, their imperial ruler, Matthew Daus, and this severe form of taxation crammed down their throats.  It is the same tax now being imposed upon business owners all over the world.  It is a tax imposed upon these drivers by private corporations, non-government entities.  It has been imposed "without the consent of the governed" by the City of New York, urged on by the powerful, ever greedy Credit Card Cartel.  They will not allow any group of businesses to escape their clutches, but the Yellow Cab drivers might well be their Achilles Heel.  They would constitute "a class"  in a Class Action suit against the city of New York and the Credit Card Cartel for being forced to perform work for the Cartel without compensation.

   MATTHEW DAUS  

Matthew Daus, the New York City Taxi commissioner, is second cousin to jackass if he really thinks that there is any benefit to the drivers of Yellow Cabs with the installation of credit card equipment.  There is none; it is all negative.  It may be convenient for riders at times, but if they've been paying cash for years it proves that people carry cash and will pay cash if necessary.  If it was not necessary in the past, then why is it suddenly so important to force the cabbies to become indentured servants to the Credit Card Cartel today?

The Number One reason that cab riders want to use plastic to pay for their ride is to obtain "credits" towards air miles, travel, hotel and motel stays.  These awards are not paid for by those who control the credit card industry, but by the sellers, either merchants or cabbies.  These awards are small bribes that eventually add up to large sums of money in benefits.  These awards cannot take place without the cooperation of the cabbies, without the labor of the cabbies, without being directly ordered and imposed upon the cabbies.

Matthew Daus has become an enforcer, like an officer in the Gestapo, for these unbalanced and unfair contracts used by the Credit and Charge Card Cartel.  Because of its' severity, if it was the State of New York that tried to impose this tax, the uproar would be so great that it would never get out of the Legislature. It is both harsh and unfair; it singles out a single group for taxation, the NY Cabbies.  If a Cabbie refuses to accept plastic it puts him in a confrontational situation with his Fare. 

It is not, as perceived, only a 5% tax on the New York cabbie's earnings, but closer to 10%.  Daus has ten fingers, but obviously does not know simple arithmetic; costs, expenses must come out of the totals before there is a profit, but the Credit Card Cartel takes theirs right off the top before expenses are considered.    

The big beneficiaries are banks and credit card issuers, not the small businessmen, not the cabbies, just the banks.  Matthew Daus has been brainwashed by the Cartel, for it is a scheme that was developed in secret by Citibank and its' cohorts to maximize their profits while giving the royal shaft to those who accepted plastic as a form of payment.  Daus should be fired for his ignorance.  Daus should be canned for stupidly going along with the plastic industry, caving in to them.  Daus is now sending his Gestapo out in force to bring the cabbies to their knees, to tighten the Visa/MasterCard collar around their necks and chain them firmly, wrists and ankles, to their $3,000 scanning machines. 

In order that these "experts" in other people's finances should know what it is like, it is my proposal that 5% a month be deducted from the salaries of Commissioner Daus's and all those who work in his office, the same percentage that the New York Cabbies will lose, and that it be donated to Citibank.   That will give them an idea of how devastating these bank charges for credit and charge card use affects the small businessman's earnings.  That's what Cabbies are, small independent businesses, trying to take care of their families and get a leg up in the world!  Commissioner Daus is King George IV, of England, determined to impose his tax upon the colonists, whom he regards as mere savages.