The recursive accounting problem

[void4]

If you want to monitor/control the resource usage of a system (program, company, country, financial), you can attach a resource accountant/manager to it (cgroups, accounting department, statistical office, central bank).

In terms of CPU time, a limited resource that also doesn't originate from the manager itself, you have the manager using a certain amount of resources itself, it creates an overhead that may not be accounted for by itself. Having it accounted by a third system leads to an infinite regress.

An accounting department supervises and controls the flow of resources to other parts of the system, the company it is part of. The originator (a central bank) of the resource they measure (money) is external to the system.

Central banks may create arbitrary quantities of money, including for financing their own operation. This makes it somewhat paradoxical to measure the cost of the central bank with that quantity.

Any kind of planning process incurs an overhead, but whether accounting for this overhead is done, or can be done accurately, depends on the nature of the system.