Monthly Columnists

As of January 2014, 20 million more people were on food stamps compared to 2007. The total number of recipients is now around 47 million, more than 15 percent of the population. The SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) is just one of many federal and state supported programs. I merely chose this one to drive home my point.

Granted, we lived through the second worst depression in modern U.S. economic history, but since then the economy has been making progress and unemployment figues have come down. Unfortunately, the amount of money spent on social welfare keeps climbing. The cost of the SNAP program is now 2 1/2 times higher ($74 billion) compared to 2007 ($30 billion). How can this be fied?

It’s important to check out the background of your broker or financial advisor, just like you would any profes sional. Unfortunately, there are a number of different regulatory agencies that oversee brokers, advisors and insurance agents, and it’s not always easy to be sure you’re going to the right place, or getting the relevant information. Here’s a short primer.

If your life is perfect, skip this column. Send me an e-mail sharing your secrets to a fulfilled life. If by chance you are one of the 100 million Americans that makes a New Year’s resolution or helps to fuel the 2.5 billion self-help industry, read on.

First know that according to surveys, a very high percentage of resolutions remain unfulfilled. If you are a cynic you might rightfully conclude that given the odds, it makes no sense to bother making one in the first place … unless you read this column, which is aimed at improving your chances of resolution success.

The news that Amazon, the largest Internet retailer, and the U.S. post office are collaborating to make Sunday delivery of packages a reality in an attempt to forever paint every Friday black (order on Friday, deliver on Sunday) might in itself seem trivial. Just another spoke in the wheel to make it possible to always shop, always consume, always be inundated with marketing plots, in a never-ending quest to squeeze out the last ounce of profit and the titanic fight for market share taking shamelessly advantage of our conveniencedriven habits.

We asked somebody much more qualified than myself that very question. Edward Jay Epstein is an investigative journalist and former political science professor at Harvard. He wrote 15 fascinating books starting with “Inquest. The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth” in 1966 all the way to his latest work, “The JFK Assassination Diary: My Search for Answers to the Mystery of the Century” (2013).

Here is his answer:

Here is my view on the surveillance state.

f you were angling for the job of feature reporter for the “Mansions” section of the Wall Street Journal, you blew through your deadline; applications closed on Oct. 15. It’s a pretty good beat, reporting on the rich and famous, and where they live and play.

Since it only required three years of journalism experience, one would suppose the successful applicant would have already spent a great deal of time going in and out of these over-the-top luxury homes.

Our guilty fascination with the rich and their lifestyle of luxury is perfectly understandable.

A few month back I wrote that we need BIG thinking and bold decision-making in order to strengthen our community and our brand.

T his month I want to call attention to three events that serve as prime examples of this kind of thinking, the kind that can propel a community such as ours from an ordinary seaside resort to a world-class community.

The three events are the Public Outdoor Art Exhibition at Honey Horn Plantation, Imagination 2013 at the same venue and the Concours d’Elegance, which this year is around the clubhouse at Port Royal Golf Club.

A Biotech stocks have been on a tear in 2013. Initial public offerings or IPOs, totaled $1.7 billion in the first half of the year, greater than in 2011 and 2012 combined. The Nasdaq Biotech Index, a measure of industry performance, is up over 42% year to date. According to Deutsche Bank, consensus for annual earnings growth in the biotech industry over the next 3 years is estimated at 21 percent, compared with 9 percent for the S&P 500. In 2012, the FDA approved 39 drug therapies, more than in any year since 1996.

A few weeks ago Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKB) announced a second-quarter profit increase of 46 percent, reflecting improvement in their core businesses of auto insurance, energy and railroads, as well as gains from investments and derivatives. We shouldn’t be surprised. Investors have long marveled at the success of Berkshire Hathaway in building value for its shareholders; their business portfolio includes General Re, Berkshire Reinsurance, Geico, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Mid-America Energy, Union Tank Car, Clayton Homes (the country’s leading builder and financer of manufactured homes), CORT Furniture, and a slew of common stock investments in publicaly traded companies. Berkshire owns 13.7 percent of American Express, 8.9 percent of Coca Cola, 8.7 percent of Wells Fargo and 6 percent of IBM, to list just a few. They have also acquired 28 daily newspapers across the United States, pursuing Buffett’s strategy of investing in these businesses for their ability to deliver local news not obtainable elsewhere.

Three things: The envisioned outcome, a plan and the xwillingness to execute it over a long period of time.

Three years ago such a general road map was delivered to the town council and the public titled the “Mayor’s Vision Task Force Vision 2025.” A progress report contributed by Lisa Allen can be read on page 76 of this issue. If you are interested in reading the original document, go to www.hiltonheadmonthly.com/taskforce.

In 1919 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the noted Supreme Court Justice, wrote in a seminal case regarding the freedom of expression under the Constitution, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

While Holmes reconsidered his opinion in later years, with these words he articulated a canon of public morals; that there is nothing protected and no inherent right to speak falsely or maliciously, causing a public panic or disarray.

It would be easy to allow oneself to become depressed, realizing that there are so many things that could use fixing in this world, complain about injustice or one’s own misfortune. Instead I remember a proverb one of my mentors taught me growing up. “It is better to light a fire than complain about the darkness”.

Focusing on the negative is not going to make anything better, but in order to find the daily strength to look at the bright side of life and do our part to turn things positive, we need a source of inner power and positive energy.