Charleston Currents – Andy Brack

Articles by: Andy Brack

BRACK: Make smart investments with robust economy

By Andy Brack

DEC. 21, 2015 | The good thing about budgeting on the conservative side is that when things go well, there’s a little extra money left over.
On a national level, the stock market is relatively robust. Overall growth is pretty steady. The dollar is strong. And the federal deficit is the lowest since 2007. Things seem to be going so well that the Federal Reserve this week finally lifted its benchmark interest rate from zero to 0.25 percent, a long-expected minor rise intended to rein in the economy a little bit.

by Andy Brack · 12/21/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Let’s have some real gun sense in S.C.

By Andy Brack | Somewhere recently on Facebook, I came across a cartoon that showed a guy sitting on a beach enjoying a drink. The caption read something like, “Another sunny day on the beach in Australia without an outbreak of gun violence.”

The same can’t be said for America. An average of 90 people a day die somehow in the United States because of a guns. In the 35 years since musician John Lennon was shot five times in the back by a man with a revolver, more than 1.1 million Americans have died because of guns.

by Andy Brack · 12/14/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

HISTORY: The New Deal

S.C. Encyclopedia, part one of two| The New Deal was a collection of federal programs enacted between 1933 and 1939 to solve the problems created by the Great Depression. In South Carolina the New Deal brought three R’s: recovery for farmers, bankers, textile mill owners, and small businessmen; relief for the unemployed and destitute; and reform in labor-management relations, banking, sale of securities, and retirement. In the process the New Deal radically increased the role of the federal government in the state’s economy by creating permanent acreage allotment programs, agricultural credit, compulsory minimum wage / maximum hours requirements, protection for laborers who sought to unionize, Social Security benefits, a public welfare system, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect depositors, the Federal Housing Administration to expand housing opportunities, and the Rural Electrification Administration to electrify the countryside.

by Andy Brack · 12/07/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

BRACK: Legislature needs more strategic, long-term thinking

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Parents routinely tell their children to be smart about how they act. The state needs to take the same advice.

Case in point: South Carolina’s energy policy. Since the early 1990s, the state of South Carolina has actually had a policy to set a comprehensive state energy plan. But it’s been pretty toothless — a plan in name only, with all sorts of nice-sounding 00_icon_brackgoals that don’t hold policymakers or anybody accountable.

by Andy Brack · 12/07/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Pandering to fear isn’t the American way

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Recall Thanksgiving afternoon as you watched football and digested turkey after giving much thanks for your freedom, blessings and family.

Imagine hearing the doorbell as you’re dozing. At the door is a young brown woman, heavy with child. She’s wearing a scarf on her head. On the street, you see a beat-up car with a man inside.

by Andy Brack · 11/30/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Congratulations, Mayor-elect Tecklenburg

By Andy Brack | The Charleston that you want the world to see showed up Tuesday night at Mayor-elect John Tecklenburg’s victory party — young, old, black, white, Republicans, Democrats, gay, straight, rich, poor, old Charleston and new Charleston.

The inclusive, diverse crowd vibrated with palpable and emotional electricity as energized supporters grooved to loud music, laughed, hugged and waited for a victory speech. Then Tecklenburg delivered the kind of forward-looking talk you’ve heard for weeks. He discussed boosting Charleston’s quality of life and working together to make things better.

by Andy Brack · 11/18/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Senate disappoints in inability to pass ethics reform

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | It almost defies reality that the downfall since 2012 of the state’s number two and number three elected officials hasn’t yet led to major ethics reform. The once bright promise of more transparency in government is becoming dimmer every passing day.

by Andy Brack · 11/16/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

A run-down motel in Allendale, S.C. Photo by Michael Kaynard.

REVIEW: Deep South

Deep South, Nonfiction by Paul Theroux

Reviewed by Andy Brack | Noted travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux’s new book about our region, Deep South, causes me to have very mixed reactions. On more than one occasion, I wondered, “Where does this guy get off saying that?” And I grab the book and want to hurl it through the window. These fits particularly came after one of Theroux’s elitist, degrading attempts at phonetically capturing the Southern accent.

by Andy Brack · 11/09/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

#JohnNotLeon — a special election commentary

By Andy Brack | updated 11.7.15

After all of Leon Stavrinakis’s whining about negative campaigning in the race to replace Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, you might have been surprised that the first thing out of his mouth after the polls closed was an attack.

Stavrinakis, who has been a frontrunner for so long that he was obviously stunned that he came in a close second to commercial real estate agent John Tecklenburg on November 3, criticized the lead vote-getter as a “developer” in comments to the press.

by Andy Brack · 11/04/2015 · Comments are Disabled · 2015 Mayor, Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: If you want a friend, get a dog

By Andy Brack | Life got darker last week when a shining light of my family’s lives went out.

Our 14-year-old dog passed on Thursday, leaving our daughters without an elegant presence that’s been with them ever since they were born.

There were lots of tears for our Simon, a Labrador-Dalmatian mix whose long legs suggested a speck of greyhound thrown in for good measure. Rescued from a local agency, he joined us a year after my wife and I married.

by Andy Brack · 11/02/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views