ECON 101 Summer School

I learned football from Howie Long. He wrote Football for Dummies back in the 90s and I bought a copy. I took it to the sports bar every weekend to study games and read up on what positions, plays, and patterns were unfolding.

My corporate job at SYNNEX from 2005 until 2012 was a living laboratory while I studied organization and management on my way to a PhD in 2014. The theories I read in books were enacted by colleagues wearing polos and khakis, smart suits, and high-heeled shoes. I saw strategy formulated and executed in real life.

Once I started teaching, the concepts moved like maps in my mind, laying over the terrain I navigated as a consultant and an entrepreneur. The stories people told, the experiences they had, all lined up with the vocabulary and techniques I was studying.

This summer, 2025, I put myself through an economics class. I started with The Worldly Philosophers, a text recommended by Walter Russell Mead, a journalist and contributor to a podcast I follow. It took me through the evolution of the study of economics from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes. I’d heard names like Hayek and Friedman thrown around in libertarian circles, but I wanted to understand how they fit in the canon, to use the literary terminology.

I felt inspired to learn more about economics by an April episode of Moore Impact where Jason DeBacker talked about how the tax code works to incentivize certain behaviors. Over the summer, I hosted a series of episodes on Moore Impact that dove into the economics of the day. First, Bill Hauk came on to discuss trade policy and the effects of tariffs on South Carolina. Then Jason came back to talk about South Carolina’s General Assembly pursuing a 0% income tax. A couple of weeks later, I asked him back to talk about the Federal Reserve. He joked that talking about the Fed was Econ 101.

I should have taken economics. I have a PhD in business. My father majored in economics at the Naval Academy in 1972 and he urged me to study business at Clemson, but I studied English, twice – first at Clemson (‘99) and then at Winthrop (‘04). When I chose my PhD it was mostly because I was working in business as a copy writer and I was a total newbie as to how business worked. Despite having had the title of Marketing Director at Austin International (now Vision Metering) while in graduate school, I knew very little about marketing.

Every time I’ve felt I needed to know more, I’ve gone back to school. 

Books, films, podcasts, interviews, classes, even just coffee with a really smart person. I feel comfortable as a learner and comfortable in front of the classroom. I’m comfortable on the microphone at 100.7 The Point and comfortable on my keyboard writing these blogs. Comfort is a matter of preparedness. It’s the result of study and practice and confidence that I know what I’m doing in the role I’m taking.

How will I prepare to be your Senator?

I don’t expect to be comfortable. Change is always disruptive and if we pull this off, if 1 Million South Carolinians step forward and decide they want something different, something disruptive, something that will really change Washington, it’s gonna be crazy.

How will I prepare for crazy?

Right now I’m doing what entrepreneurs call customer discovery. I’m out talking to people about what they see, hear, know, love, and hate about politics in this state. We’re all divided by carefully constructed stories delivered by the political machine through digital algorithms and data-driven advertising. We’ve been segmented, bifurcated, analyzed, and manipulated by the Republicans and Democrats. 

They fundraise on the problems they made, with solutions they never intend to implement.

South Carolina voters know better. We know our government isn’t working for us. It’s working for them: politics is all about profit, power, and party. And we’re sick of it.

I’m preparing to be your Senator by learning how exhausted you are by the theater of politics. How frustrated you are by what you’re hearing from Washington. How disgusted you are by the amount of money being spent by campaigns with little to nothing to show for it.

There has to be a better way. Entrepreneurs always think so. And I think so.

Let’s do this on less than $1M. Let’s get one million South Carolinians to agree to trust one another, to choose one another, and to tell Washington we’ve had enough of Team Red and Team Blue. We’re ready for actual governance.

I’m preparing for actually governing by studying economics. Not just the talking points, but the real functionality of markets and government. 

This summer’s ECON 101 taught me:

• South Carolina is the fifth-ranked recipient of foreign direct investment in the nation which means companies from other countries live here. They employ us: BMW, GlaxoSmithKline, Michelin, Nan-Ya, Samsung, Siemens, and Volvo to name a few of the 1,100 companies with foreign roots and South Carolina branches.
• Tariffs hurt those companies by making it difficult for them to get the parts they need to build their products. The administration is betting those companies will start sourcing their products from US manufacturers. 
• Finger-crossing is not a strategy. When production slows down, people get laid off. 
• Congress has the power to check these tariffs. They just haven’t. And our Senators have been mute.
• Trade deficits exist but they’re not a bad thing. We have trade deficits with our grocery stores because they have what we need and so we give them money for it. But we have trade surpluses with our employers, as we trade our labor for pay. 
• The United States has trade surpluses in services, the other half of the economy (goods and services). We are not being told the whole story on the tariffs. 
• The people who benefit from tariffs are the ones who negotiate them. 
• Consumers pay for tariffs, not countries.
• The Federal Reserve is independent because its officers serve 14-year terms. They’re meant to outlast any political tenure. We don’t want politicians planning the economy, they really only care about the next election cycle. 
• We really don’t want anyone planning the economy, it would probably be better to have a free market determine things like interest rates. But there is no prosperous nation in the world that doesn’t have a Central Bank, so there’s no guarantee abolishing the Fed would magically set us free. 
• What we should really be worried about is the Fed’s ability to cover for Congress overspending. As long as the Fed is around, our lawmakers don’t have to balance their budget. And that is just irresponsible.

The economy is complicated but we can understand it if we take the time to learn and ask questions past the talking points of political messengers who want to win our vote by any means necessary. I won’t say whatever it takes to win. I’ll say what needs to be said.

Why am I the obvious choice? Because I am an active learner. I will continue to study, learn, and make better decisions with you, the people of South Carolina. 

The 2026 election maths like this: We need 1 million votes to win in a three-way race. If you are one of the 1 million South Carolinians who is sick of politics-as-usual, take a chance on me. I’m something entirely different. I can’t be bought, but I can be taught.

Ready to get in the game? We could use your help. Click here to sign up.