Q: Where does Money come from
A: It is printed by the government and carries an enormous profit
Q: Where do UNITS come from.
A: We create them when we trade and there is no one taking a profit
But a previous head of the Mint, Ross MacDiarmid, let the cat out of the bag in 2014 when he told a Senate committee
most of the coins that we provide are against coins that disappear down the back of chairs, down the back of car seats, into rubbish dumps and, in some cases, are taken overseas.
Asked whether he was seriously suggesting a hundred million or so coins per year disappear, Mr MacDiarmid replied he was.
This means the government makes tens of millions per year replacing – at a huge markup – things we have lost.
And it’s just the beginning. The $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes made by Note Printing Australia for the Reserve Bank have an astronomical markup.
“If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?” “Yes, but a desert island isn’t Ankh-Morpork!” “And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. Add a knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves forever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand percent.”
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money