Meaningful joke

Pretty good joke seen at Quora:

Salons always have hair on the floor.
Garages have oil on the floor.
Carpenters have sawdust on the floor.
Hey, banks! Get with the program!

The joke helps us understand why money is different. Banks handle lots of bills and coins. Why isn’t there any rejected material?

In fact there is some rejected material. Banks watch for counterfeit and take it out of the stream. But this isn’t the same as hair or oil. Each bill and coin is a carrier of meaning, not a physical product that can be trimmed or sanded into a better shape. Counterfeit isn’t excess or low-quality** money; it’s money that has been assigned its meaning by the wrong meaning factory..

A legally produced bill that loses some of its corners still carries the same meaning, and a legally produced coin that wears down with use still carries the same meaning.

= = = = =

** Not low quality: In fact some counterfeit was detected because it was HIGHER QUALITY than real money.