Economics of Violence

I'm reading the April 16, 2011 edition of The Economist, a magazine that deals with world wide politics and economics. You can find the magazine online at
http://economist.com

I find that almost all the articles are of interest and deal with stuff our media never tells us like news of illegal immigrants in Italy. Turns out they have a surge of people coming up from Africa trying to avoid violence and poverty.

The Iceland defaulting on its loans from Britain and Ireland. Who knew, and they are voting no on the referendum to repay at this point.

One article is particularly interesting , called The Economics of Violence. Read it at
http://www.economist.com/node/18558041
The whole thesis put forth, and the author does a very good job, too, is that violence causes poverty, not the other way around. There's a lot of examples and statistics to support this theory.
I'm left thinking that if indeed this is true, and it does make sense, then if a wealthy country turns violent and corrupt, poverty is the end result.
Government corruption is a key factor here. The article states that "countries with good governance are much less likely than their peers to have suffered from civil conflict or high murder rates in 2000-2005." They point to the severe problems in Libya, Egypt and other Arab countries as examples.

What does it mean for us here in America? If conditions worsen both in governance and violence, we can only expect economics to worsen.
Poverty is growing. It's a vicious cycle that spirals downward.
Citizens must be prepared to defend themselves, help others and practice humanity.
Preventing violence by providing justice and security, preventing destruction of property and building a responsible government lead to wealth and well being.

Check out the online Economist. In depth news from around the globe that we miss out on because CNN or Fox wants to tell us about the Royal Wedding or Tiger Wood's marital problems.