I'll respond to that. There are a number of points you made, and let us hope I get all of them.
Let me get to the Adam Smith point that I made about people lobbying government. That occurs all over the world; it has occurred since 1776 and it occurs today. People act in their own best interests—that was Adam Smith's point—and if you have government setting rules and regulations, they'll try to get the rules set in their own interest. That hasn't changed. The nature of the economy is much more complicated, but that fundamental fact is still the same.
On these systems, I think it's important to stress, when one has to understand how it is and who bears the cost, what happened 40 to 50 years ago. Only cash and cheques were used. Then credit cards came along. Credit cards could only survive if they innovated, if they were more efficient. An example I gave is, if I go to Tim Hortons and swipe my credit card, it's fast; or if I go to service stations, it's faster—it's more efficient. They need fewer employees to take cash, if I do it myself. I can make online transactions.
When you have innovation and it's efficient, the new system can offer the product with more benefits at a lower cost. You ask who pays for the benefits. No one does. They result from building the better mouse trap. If you build a better mouse trap, you can sell it cheaper and give a better product. This selling the cheaper.... As Professor Lee said, when you give the loyalty programs or you give all these benefits, the customer is getting it cheaper, because it's a superior product—not in all transactions, but in a lot of transactions.
That's how credit cards could survive. They provide a better product at a lower price. The merchants only see these benefits being given to the customers; they don't see that these transactions are being done more efficiently and that these customers are now being brought in. That's the gain.