Since the rise of modern sciences, alchemy has been regarded as superstition. The well-known national economist Hans Christoph Binswanger provocatively counters: The attempts to create artificial gold were not abandoned because they were no longer viable, but because a different form of alchemy prevailed. Modern economics invented the transformation of a low-quality material into a high-quality symbol - with it, money could be made from paper. Furthermore, the economist goes even further in his analysis: The alchemical trick of the economy will eventually be exposed. Without real returns, growth from nothing will inevitably come to a certain end. This is a revised and updated version of the original edition.