Actually themusic I believe that checks and credit cards are both actually M1, although you may be right.

Ironically, the reason that there is such an extreme gap between the rich and poor is because of family. It is a central and essential part of the human experience, yet it causes much of the inbalance of poverty.
Think about it. You make money and give what you save to your kids when you die, and provide the best education possible, so hopefully they'll have a better life. However, the rich are doing the same, and they have more money to pass on and for education, plus they know the others with money. Assuming equal ability and discounting luck, the rich one will always make more money than a middle class one.

One of the better critisms of Communism was that they took equality to far. They forced everyone to always be equal while America gave everyone equal chance to become rich. Well there can only be so many rich, and thus the same group with minor changes among its lower tiers are always wealthy (barring catastrophe). Communism/socialism is not the answer, but I don't know what is either. We could keep the family and poverty based on bloodline or destroy them both.