Gravity7

…the unit cost of intermediation is higher today than it was a century ago, and it has increased over the past 30 years. One interpretation is that improvements in information technology may have been cancelled out by increases in other financial activities whose social value is difficult to assess.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/thirty-years-of-financial-inefficiency.html#iQZxYhgZJVWBE10t.99