South Carolina voting rights under the axe

  January 25, 2020

By Chuck Saylors SCSBA President and Greenville County Schools Board Member In America, choosing our government is a sacred right and duty.  Our vote is our voice, guaranteeing that we…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, op-ed

Let’s make 2020 the year of the community

  December 13, 2019

By Quint Studer If you looked only at the big picture, you’d have to say we live in deeply troubled times. It seems we’ve never been more polarized. Political discourse…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, op-ed

South Carolina – A Decade in Review

  December 10, 2019

By Alan Cooper Publisher WhosOnTheMove.com   As South Carolina turns the page on the decade, I’d like to paint a picture of where we were in 2010, where we are…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, op-ed

The inflation mystery

  October 23, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   The virtual elimination of inflation is one of the great uncovered stories of our time. If you go back to the 1970s and the early 1980s…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Why the global economy remains so weak

  October 16, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   We’ve seen this movie before. The top economists at the International Monetary Fund — the global agency created after World War II to promote stability and…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Is Trump’s tail wagging Erdogan?

  October 15, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   So let me get this straight: President Trump ordered the removal of American troops from northern Syria, knowing that Turkey would invade, seize and occupy Kurd-occupied…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Stop naming things after politicians

  October 14, 2019
Richard Eckstrom

By Richard Eckstrom, S.C. Comptroller They’re a staple of the incumbent politician’s toolkit: the countless recognitions, resolutions, proclamations, ribbon-cuttings, and photo-ops which are more ceremonial than anything else, but which…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: government, on-the-move, op-ed

The malevolent aura of Donald J. Trump

  October 14, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   COLUMBIA, S.C. — As the world seems consumed by all things Ukraine, it’s time once again to dust off the ever-popular, evergreen headline: Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

China won’t die laughing

  October 9, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Dictators. Always so humorous. Take China’s communist officialdom. You’ve probably heard about the “South Park” episode last week that the Chinese government didn’t find amusing. And…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Quids and quos gone wild

  October 5, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   It’s fair to say at this juncture that America’s Quid and Ukraine’s Quo have been caught in bed together. The fevered search for a damning quid…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Democrats, show me the message

  September 30, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   We long ago established that Donald Trump is a bad guy. We’ve multiple times said, “This is it. They’ve got to get rid of him.” So…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Dissent at the Fed

  September 30, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   The battle to control the Federal Reserve is being waged on many fronts. There’s President Trump’s relentless tirades against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell — and Powell’s…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The other victim of the Kavanaugh saga

  September 25, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Every good story needs a hero, and the saga of Brett Kavanaugh’s rise to the Supreme Court has provided one: Leland Keyser. She also became a…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The odd couple: Trump and Powell

  September 23, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   If ever there was a case of political miscalculation, it’s the collapsing relationship between President Trump and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Jerome (“Jay”)…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Boomers crush millennials. Read all about it!

  September 18, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   As a case study in the workings of modern democracy, the handling of Social Security by successive presidents and Congress over recent decades is a deeply…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The heresy of hearsay

  September 18, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   The recent fiasco at The New York Times, which last weekend published the latest uncorroborated sexual-assault accusation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was a monument…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Should we love or hate ‘negative’ interest rates?

  September 16, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   The idea that interest rates could be “negative” seems so counterintuitive that it defies easy understanding. Yet, here we are. Some foreign central banks (among them,…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Trump won — again

  September 16, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Watching the Democratic presidential debate Thursday night left one clear impression: Donald Trump won. Please don’t shoot the messenger. My left index finger recoiled a bit…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Will the real poverty rate please stand up?

  September 11, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   It has always been hard to measure poverty, because poverty is as much a state of mind as a condition of material well-being. Still, we seem…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Through Mark Sanford’s looking glass

  September 11, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Once upon a time, Mark Sanford might have been a contender, but there’s too much water under the bridges that stretch from this city of steeples…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The globalization backlash

  September 6, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   The verdict of history is that the trade war that’s now raging between the United States and China will lead to no good — with consequences…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

A needed step toward improving S.C.’s beleaguered prisons

  September 6, 2019
Richard Eckstrom

By Richard Eckstrom, S.C. Comptroller   First, let’s acknowledge the obvious: All is not well in South Carolina’s prison system. Its troubles have been pretty well-documented over the past few…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: government, on-the-move, op-ed

Should the Fed fight back?

  September 4, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   “To the barricades.” That’s one way of characterizing Bill Dudley’s recent proposal that the Federal Reserve fight back against President Trump’s unrelenting attacks. Although it’s a…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Waiting for Dorian

  September 3, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   For the Eastern Seaboard, Dorian has become the Godot of hurricanes. Barely moving after hovering over the Bahamas for what seemed an eternity, the former Category…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Have we lost our economic dynamism?

  September 3, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   On this Labor Day, the American economy — the source of jobs for almost all of us — is full of promise and peril. It is…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The Old South gets a new college president

  September 2, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   From a childhood laboring in China’s cotton and wheat fields to the presidency of the College of Charleston, Andrew Hsu’s story is anything but ordinary. His…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

A world on fire

  August 27, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   A question for this moment: If the Earth’s lungs were on fire and the doctor refused to treat it, would there be cause for a third-party…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The elderly aren’t so poor after all

  August 27, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   It was probably inevitable that we would have a “retirement crisis” as hordes of baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) sprint and stumble into…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

S.C. must act wisely with $350 million surplus

  August 26, 2019

By Richard Eckstrom, S.C. Comptroller I’ll start with the good news: I recently closed the books for the fiscal year that ended June 30, and even after some additional “contingent” spending…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, op-ed

The great deficit gamble

  August 26, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington (or…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

To heck with profits!

  August 21, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   We’ve been here before: one of those portentous moments when corporate America promises to be more socially “responsible.” These episodes are, it seems, a permanent feature…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Learning from the Great Depression

  August 19, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   What is striking about the latest bouts of financial turmoil — the recent wild swings in global stock and bond markets — is that they provide…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Here’s why we may be underspending on defense

  August 14, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   I’ve written several columns this year on military spending, contending — against conventional wisdom — that we don’t spend more than the next eight countries combined,…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Is the economy turning against Trump?

  August 12, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   To have a recession or not — that is the question. It also encompassed last week’s most important political news, notwithstanding all the public attention understandably…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The shaming of America

  August 12, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   One of the everlasting social forces in directing human behavior — shame — has become part of the 2020 presidential race. And one of the most…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The China-America trade crackup

  August 7, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   Donald Trump sold himself to the American public as an expert deal-maker. At the top of his list was a promised trade bargain with China that…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

A tale of Zorro and Little St. Jeff’s

  August 3, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   The more we learn, the more Jeffrey Epstein resembles an evil comic book character for the developmentally arrested intellectual — the charming-but-lurid mastermind with a plot…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The Fed’s jobs machine

  August 3, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has not been shy about saying what he’s trying to do: prolong the economy’s expansion so that it creates more jobs…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Donald Trump’s rhetorical race war

  July 31, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   The idea of a race war has long animated white supremacists, who seem to think that such a conflict would result in a white victory, whatever…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The indestructible welfare state

  July 31, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   It seems unavoidable. Like it or not, the U.S. welfare system is bound to play a big role in the 2020 election. The recent Democratic debate…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

A waste of Mueller’s time

  July 29, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   The picture that spoke far more words than former special counsel Robert Mueller uttered during last week’s hearings was taken by renowned photographer David Hume Kennerly.…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Are we shortchanging the military?

  July 28, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   The military-industrial complex isn’t bankrupting us — though some on the left still cling nostalgically to the belief that it is. It’s fiction. We need to…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The Fed’s dreary choices

  July 24, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   It’s a done deal. Almost everyone, or so it seems, believes the Federal Reserve will cut short-term interest rates next week when its main decision-making body…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Plant a tree, hug a bee

  July 23, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Sometimes big problems can be solved simply. At the moment, our biggest problem — climate change — can be ended by simply planting trees. OK, so…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Here’s how the internet attacked me

  July 22, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   I got hacked. It was scary. In this age of cybereverything, we all live in dread that we’re going to be somehow attacked by the internet.…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

The color of her skin

  July 22, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Going out on a limb here: Donald Trump is a racist. And a sexist. And a xenophobic nationalist. Among other things. Not to name call or…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Will the global debt bomb explode again?

  July 17, 2019
Robert Samuelson

By Robert Samuelson   Debt is the crux of the matter. If you want to understand what makes the world vulnerable to a global recession or, possibly, something much worse,…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed

Watch out for falling rocks

  July 17, 2019
Kathleen Parker

By Kathleen Parker   Don’t breathe a word, but President Trump is up to something. His insulting, too-dumb-to-fail comments about four freshmen female members of Congress has the civilized world’s…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: op-ed