[adolph]

Fees

> removed from the economy

This is untrue. Bank fees are not placed into landfills, figurative, literal or otherwise. At best you can say that dispositive decision making power for the money is changed from the transaction participants to the transaction facilitators. One might say that the leaders of banking orgs spend it on the frivolous, like large boats. The boatwright’s children might differ as otherwise they’d be beggars.

[jqpabc123]

OK, removed from the *consumer* economy and placed in the hands of transaction middlemen.

[adolph]

> transaction middlemen

Who are in turn the consumers of other producers. The money doesn't get dumped into a never draining pool of gold in which "transaction middlemen" swim recreationally.