I agree and get the joke. A long time ago we all agreed it's a bit silly to carry all these valuables around, so we write them on pieces of paper and trade those. The value of an asset the paper represents is magic, but the paper itself has a "direct" value.

Somewhere we decided 50 cows are worth a car, and 10 cars are worth a house. The paper is just to help communicate and trade. Don't hate the paper, hate the game.