The Civitas Institute’s Brian Balfour has written an excellent article on the NC Poverty Reduction and Economic Recovery Commission, which claims that “an understanding of the causes and effects of poverty are critical in the reduction of poverty and economic recovery.” What Brian points out is that if we are truly concerned about reducing poverty we need to understand what creates wealth. Poverty is our natural state of affairs, the state of affairs that the world has lived with for most of human history and that much of the world continues to live with today. It is amazing how people who claim to be the most concerned about the poor typically don’t have a clue about what it is that will lift the poor out of poverty and allow them to be prosperous. I addressed this same issue in a post here on the Locker Room several years ago.