Anything America Does, Israel Can Do Stupider

I would like to preface this post with the following disclaimer. I do not hate Israel. I think it is a lovely country with many excellent aspects. That said, however, I do think the bulk of its population, is made up of complete morons.

Example #1: The board members of large companies, in this case, Superbus

Israeli busses have always relied on a system of punch cards, whereby you hand your card to the bus driver, who reaches down, picks up his whole puncher, peers at your card trying to determine where exactly there is a free space to punch, and then finally punches a hole in it, all the while careening at breakneck speed along a windy road on the side of a dangerously steep cliff. But that's not even what I'm talking about.
Enter onto the scene, a new bus company, Superbus. The wave of the future, the new Superbus busses actually have something resembling a metrocard. Imagine that! 'Israel is finally catching up to the 21st century,' we all exclaimed.
I should have remembered my long-held opinion of the Israeli business model before getting all excited.

Let me explain to you how this new Superbus card works.
First of all, G-d forbid there should be card terminals where you can buy these cards, like the metrocard machines in the States. No, you have to go down to a Superbus office, during regular office hours (when most people are at work) and buy a card. And when I say 'buy a card,' I mean pay for the actual piece of plastic. Yup, you pay for the privilege of merely carrying these cards. But, that's not stupidity per se, that's just greed. Which is ok. After all, these new bus cards are going to change the face of Israeli bussing forever more. Busses will be safer, faster, and more efficient. Right? Wrong. Allow me to continue. So you load money on the card,(we'll leave out the technical details of acheiving that feat), you get on the bus... AND YOU HAND YOUR CARD TO THE BUS DRIVER. You're probably shaking your head and thinking you must have read that sentence wrong. Or maybe she mis-typed. (No, you Israeli board member- I typed it in caps on purpose.) Hand the card to the bus driver? Whatever for? Why can't you just swipe it?
Well, I'll tell you why. Because the bus driver must swipe it. Yup, he takes the card from you (just like he used to take the little punchy card), swipes it, and then waits for a little receipt to be printed that tells you how much money is on your card. And all this in twice as much time as it would have taken him to punch your card on the old busses. But this is progress - Israeli style. Need I say more?