(Hoe-Young-han, younghan@chosun.com ) 
¡°Money is to be sought for first of all; virtue after wealth,¡± said the Roman poet Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC). If a poet who lived 2,000 years ago stressed the importance of money that much, one could easily imagine how things are in a capitalist society.
The picture was taken in 1984, at the Bank of Korea¡¯s disposal unit for obsolete money. At that time, W10 billion to W30 billion bundles were destroyed every day by punching a hole in the money. The bills are only useless bundles of paper, but for ordinary people, they still look like money.
Almost 20 years later, a new ¡°washing machine¡± for money went into service at a Seongnae branch of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, known as Nonghyup. For most people, the word ¡°money laundering¡± would bring up an image of bribery and malfeasance.
But Nonghyup¡¯s washing machine literally washes money, topping things off with a squirt of perfume. The branch said it launched the ¡°money laundry service¡± for the sake of its customers.
Maybe ¡°money disinfectant service¡± is a more appropriate term for ¡°money laundry service.¡± But the fact that money laundering is more familiar to us than the other terms means, in some ways, that corruption has been too long entrenched in our society.
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