PAPER OR PLASTIC: CARD NOW CURRENCY OF CHOICE
By Jathon Sapsford, WSJ

Whenever state trooper Michael Poupart pulls over a speeding motorist on I-94 in Wisconsin's Kenosha County, he offers to take Visa or MasterCard debit and credit cards right there on the side of the road.
 
Drivers initially look puzzled, until the trooper explains he has a card swiper onboard. "Then they say 'OK,' and hand over the card," he says. "They'd rather deal with it right there."
 
Poupart is one reason that Americans last year, for the first time, used cards - credit, debit and others - to buy retail goods and services more often than they used cash or checks.
 
The nation now uses cards to subscribe to cable TV, pay taxes and hire Phil Marlowe, a 17-year-old in Tyngsboro, Mass., to cart stuff in the back of his Chevy Silverado. He carries a cell phone with a "PowerSwipe" snapped onto the back to handle his card transactions. His sales roughly doubled when he started advertising credit-card acceptance on the side of his truck. "One lady gave me a $30 tip just because I accepted cards," he says.

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