Digital Economy Still Misunderstood

Most People Have No Idea

I was not halfway through a discussion with a civic engineer when I sensed he had few thoughts about how the digital world impacted what he was doing. At work, I encountered similar problems. A co-worker in his 60s is suspicious of cryptocurrency and worried about cash being abolished. He thinks by being off the grid, he is safer, without realizing; the grid has already figured him out.

You think you are avoiding cryptocurrency and credit by having “dollars” in your pocket. You don’t have such cash or such exclusion. Take a look at it closely. At the top, you will see the words “Federal Reserve Note” and it has a serial number which amounts to a ledger note, just like Bitcoin. The difference is the Federal Reserve Note, a fiat currency, is backed by the power of the Federal Government and its ability to tax you and drop nuclear bombs. You can enter the serial numbers of your one-dollar notes on a website called “Where’s George?’ https://www.wheresgeorge.com/ and discover how far the note travels through the world. You can’t do that with coins or gold so easily as they have no ledger note number. Real metal is not fiat currency.

So back to the civic engineer, I think he misses the problem with modern transportation. Would you think people would leave a million dollars in the parking lot? How about a hundred thousand? You would be inclined to say no one would participate in such a thing but we do it all the time.

Go look at the parking lot and realize, averaging out the price of cars at $10,000 a piece, a mere ten cars is $100,000 and one hundred cars are a million. Being idle in parking, these are an unfunctional asset as is the parking lot they sit on. The parking lots and roads are no different. So much investment is poured into such structures, yet they are limited in wealth production.

The digital world changes this. A person can work at home, and a business can cut back on office space, maintenance work, custodian staff, parking garages, and property taxes by letting the employees do so. Fewer roads will be needed or require less repair. Need a lift? Just call Uber. This revolution is still in the making.

The civic engineer told me of the need for expanded roads in west Omaha and the lack of funds, echoing the concerns raised by Taylor Royal in the last mayoral race (https://omaha.com/state-and-regional/hansen-taylor-royal-s-family-has-no-regrets-about-fortune/article_0bc593ae-0343-5795-a530-1dd301948883.html).

However, much of the congestion in West Omaha could be cured by acknowledging the digital world. Unless you are in a factory assembly line, there is very little reason for everyone to arrive at work at the very same time. In fact, managers have found it best to work on off hours as they receive fewer distractions and get more done. (Mayor Stothert and State Auditor Charlie Janssen know this as they fought battles over it. https://www.3newsnow.com/news/local-news/stothert-city-council-at-odds-over-charter-change-allowing-mayor-to-work-while-out-of-town and https://omaha.com/state-and-regional/state-auditor-charlie-janssen-overcomes-publicity-about-long-lunches-at-bar-to-keep-his-seat/article_804f4c39-0018-55b2-8385-ba3a23dffd5f.html0 )

I explained to the engineer, he should encourage more businesses to provide more flexible schedules and work-from-home options, but he was stuck in disbelief of even saying the idea out loud, let alone in thinking the idea would work. Perhaps I caught him at a bad time. Restroom, stage right.

Anyways, for those who know people struggling with traffic congestion in West Omaha, there may be some hope from Google Maps. Of course, you know such maps will plot a route for you, but they do much more. Using the data from cell towers picking up mobile phones, they know when a route will be congested or not, based on the time of day. When viewing a route, you can request Google to display the congestion levels for a specific time. I provide screenshots below for example.

Oh, yes, traveling between two local microbreweries is important, trust me! Anyways, note the time differences and the shading of roads in orange. Think about this before you and your friends hit the road.