We're Going to Have to Burn Some Treesbd8614a

In Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, a crashed ship of useless middle-managers declares leaves to be legal tender, gets immensely rich, and then has to burn down the forests to fight the inflation that follows. It is a joke, and it is also exactly how money works. Plant too many trees through quantitative easing and stimulus, and eventually you have to burn some by hiking rates to keep the remaining currency meaningful.