Comment by skopje

...yeah but it is a pain in the ass. i end up with a percentage of unspent money every week that i have to coalesce into new bills of useful denominations. that leftover screws up my accounting system and takes extra work to put to use. i'd rather have every transaction i make tracked by visa to make my accounting cleaner and not need to futz with the whole process. the downsides you list i've never really encountered since 1992, you need better evidence of failures (unless you live in some underdeveloped nation?).