By Kyra Morris, contributing editor | This is an election year, and often we hear that election years are bad years for market returns. This is a particularly interesting, unusual and unexpected election year. The markets are jittery. What though really is the correlation of election years and the subsequent years to market returns?
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | With all of the finger-pointing, gesticulating, spite, retorts, nasty responses to retorts, robocalls and flood of oversized postcards, the presidential primary process has become a mess, more of a reality television show than reality.
It’s as if the grind of politics, which has been the social equivalent to a root canal for many, has become a caricature of itself. It’s as if real people are really acting like cartoon characters.
By Ben Fanning, contributing editor | Can you imagine spending $70+ for a massage and then walking out more stressed that when you arrived?
My client was getting regular massages but couldn’t completely turn her mind off and relax. She would vent to her masseuse about being overwhelmed at work! So she started this simple process I’ll share with you today, and finally zoned out for the first time during her massage. Ahhh!
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The traditional way states grow jobs is to lure new plants and investment from outside. But that strategy is being challenged by community developers who say it’s smarter to grow from within.
A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says states should build strong economies by focusing on “producing more home-grown entrepreneurs and on helping startups and young, fast-growing firms already located in the state to survive and to grow, not on cutting taxes and trying to lure businesses from other states.” The study says new data show home-grown jobs comprise about 80 percent of total jobs created in states.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolina will play the role of political legitimizer in its presidential primaries later this month. It may not anoint the next president, but it certainly will declutter the field.
Why? Because South Carolina looks like more of the rest of America, compared to contests in Iowa and New Hampshire where nine in 10 people are white. In South Carolina, just like the rest of the country, six in 10 people are white. Bottom line: Because South Carolina’s culture isn’t so homogeneous, there’s a greater diversity of views and values. And that may lead to more traditional politics.
The real estate market in Charleston continues to rage on.
Buying activity was at unprecedented levels through the November to January months, where we normally see a bit of a slowdown. 2016 will surely set many records. New construction is booming and over 40 percent of what we currently have under contract is new construction.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Simply put, Tom Johnson is a character — a Georgia-drawling, camellia-addicted, big-hearted, fun-loving, hard-working, straight-talking character.
We tell you this because Johnson, who oversees the country’s largest camellia assortment at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, is featured as “The Camellia Man” in the latest and 50th anniversary issue of Southern Living (pp. 144-149). In the article, he’s as sassy and fun as we remember during a trip to Cuba with him, wife Mary Ann Johnson and more than a dozen others last August.
By Kyra Morris, contributing editor | “Coming Together” is the theme of Charleston’s newly-elected mayor, John Tecklenburg. Charleston does not just represent the formal city of Charleston but the whole tri-county area, and coming together in Charleston is not new.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | At the risk of irritating — and alienating — a majority of South Carolinians, here’s a question: Why do we even need something called a Confederate Relic Room?
Before you spit out your coffee, consider that South Carolina doesn’t have a separate Revolutionary War Relic Room or an exclusive World War II Relic Room or a stand-alone Vietnam War Relic Room. Instead, the state has the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.
By Ben Fanning, contributing editor | Ever struggle to get your most important work done? Maybe even find it rolling from one to-do list to the next without ever making much progress?
When I tackled the “gotta do” work of writing my #1 bestselling book, The Quit Alternative, there were lots of days I didn’t want to write. This important work could have dragged on for years because there was always plenty of other work to distract me.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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