I know this is somewhat off-topic and not completely related to your encounter (except mine was a taxi too), but your post made me remember a taxi ride I took with a friend who was visiting from the States a few weeks ago.
It was about 2100, raining, and the cab driver was complaining about Argentina in English after he'd heard us having a conversation in English. He told us he is a biochemist (he was about 45 or so) who can't find work in his profession here because of the anti-business policies of the government and has to drive a cab. Of course, I agreed with him that business sucks here, let him know I'd lived here the last 8+ years, had tried to do business, and didn't see any changes coming quickly.
He then went on to tell us how the taxi drivers here are such "aprovechadores". That they will get a foreigner in the cab when it's raining, if one can find a cab, and will then charge $400 pesos for a ride for which the destination is just ten blocks away. I didn't say anything - I'd never had such an encounter in my time here with a cabbie in the rain, although I've had other stupidities come up. Just kind of nodded my head and kept quiet.
We arrived at our destination and he said "now see, I'm such a good guy, I'm only going to ask you for 100 pesos." I looked at the meter. 32 pesos and change. We'd gone about 15 blocks. I looked at him and could tell he was serious. I laughed and handed him a 10, a 20 and a 2 and told him I didn't have any coins and left. Normally I would have given him 35 pesos and told him to keep the change.
Today, I took two of my girls to change some money and go eat at TGI Friday (one of their favorite places). The waitress actually gave pretty good service (which is rare for TGIF in Recoleta Shopping at least), although she was obviously in a bad mood and barely even opened her mouth when talking, she seemed so depressed. She handed me the ticket and then said "note that the service is not included in the price on the ticket. The service is ten percent." I was actually stunned. I've had people mention that service is not included in the price in one other place - the Hard Rock. But they've never even suggested to me what the percentage should be. If I like the service, I usually leave 10 percent anyway, but not this time. I can't imagine that she would have suggested this to an Argentino and I guess I wasn't in the mood to be taken advantage of because I speak Spanish with an accent.
I mention all this because it does kind of tie into the reasons given for the general strike coming up. People here want something for nothing and things aren't going to change until people realize you have to work for what you get. If you don't want much, don't work much, that's OK with me, but don't expect a lot either and sure as hell don't try to take it from me because I'm seen as an easy mark because I have an accent and dress well (at least when I go out to eat).
I completely agree with what Esteban had said earlier in another post somewhere - things here aren't going to change, no matter how many people rant against the corruption and other crap that goes on, until the individuals themselves change.
