People tend to forget that alchemy is indeed possible, it’s just prohibitively expensive.
[Sarcasm warning] For the “sake of society” why don’t we just have the government subsidize alchemy and provide the gold to the impoverished? What’s not to like?
Here’s an article from a few years ago which details the process:
Fact or Fiction?: Lead Can Be Turned into Gold
The punchline, as was the case in the article at the beginning of this thread: It takes about $5000 to produce a particle of gold so minute that special devices are needed to detect its existence.