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  Porsche, which Herr Wiedeking groomed as the parent of Volkswagen Group, is now about $10 billion in debt and Volkswagen

Right now, every second of every day, the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing is punching out 440 currency notes.

That equates to 38 million notes each day, of all denominations, that are being trucked out of its Washington DC building and onto every street corner from Boston to Beijing.

Just lately, the bureau has been even busier. It has been called on to boost the US economy by printing an extra $300 billion that will be used to buy back US debt – sort of a merry-go-round for shopperholics – which means an extra 21 billion notes are needed.

It all seems surreal to most of us. I mean, can people actually decide to simply make money and then spend it? Where does the money come from and if we have to keep printing the damn stuff, where has the rest gone?

Much of it, it seems, has gone in executive handshakes and sadly, many of the recipients are in the car industry.

The latest was Porsche’s blunt instrument, former chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking, who was turfed out with a golden handshake of about $100 million. That was on top of a few extras and in addition to his 2008 salary of a cool $120 million.

This is a man who joined a struggling Porsche in 1993 on $2 million a year plus 1 per cent of profits. He cleaned the place, let his friends at Toyota have a sleep over at the factory to introduce some cunning Japanese work systems – incidentally, the first time that a Japanese company had divulged work practice secrets – and told Porsche to build a small car, the Boxster. It worked. Porsche became the world’s most profitable car maker and would continue to hold that mantle had Herr Wiedeking not lose the plot and try and repeat some mid-century German takeover tactics.

Porsche, which Herr Wiedeking groomed as the parent of Volkswagen Group, is now about $10 billion in debt and Volkswagen – once the prey – is now the captor.

Wiedeking is now no doubt back on his Porsche tractor on his potato hobby farm in the cool first winds of a German autumn. Porsche car owners are wondering why they pay five times the price of an oil filter compared with one for a Volkswagen Golf.

You see, someone has to pay for Herr Wiedeking. Or the ousted boss of stockbroking firm Merrill Lynch, Stan O’Neal, who was booted out the door with a $200 million farewell. Or the $500 million that former ExxonMobil chairman Lee Raymond walked with in 2006. Of “Aussie Jack” Nasser who walked from a decaying Ford with $34 million in 2001 and has more recently become chairman of BHP Billiton. Or Jurgen Schrempp of Daimler who, as one of the architects of the failed DaimlerChrysler alliance, was dismissed with about $200 million in 2005 in a similar how’s-your-father act to Herr Wiedeking.

Would a Porsche be cheaper if the company found an equally competent accountant for, say, $1 million a year? Would the parts be cheaper and the maintenance schedule less financially threatening if the CEO was more austere?

Of course.

As would stockbroking fees and perks and offices and holidays for staff be reduced and we would embrace a new way to enjoy the sharemarket. Insurance would be cheaper and oil refinery costs would be slashed to the point where they would impact positively by reducing petrol prices.

But it’s all a sham, isn’t it? We know we are human and greed is the most inspiring pathway to power. If you were the head of Porsche and the board of directors knocked on your door and said: “Look chap, lovely having you and all but we’re frightfully sorry that it’s not really working out. Here’s a cheque for 100 million dollars and be a good boy and run away”, would you?

Of course.

And you wouldn’t think about the price that someone in Australia was paying for a new Porsche or the price to replace an oil filter. You wouldn’t even ask the board of directors where the money was coming from.

We gasp in horror at the price of new cars and the annual service bill, we are shocked by the rip-offs of executive handshakes and we can’t fathom how one second of printing bills at the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing is worth about $8000.

But the most shocking fact is that we keep paying. Because even though we are horrified or bewildered by the seemingly worthlessness of money being bandied about by executives – car executives in the main – we know that someone is paying for all this. That someone, is you.