Charleston film studios on hold

What last year appeared a done deal, a 38- acre movie studio complex on the Trident Tech campus, is yet to start construction. The S.C. Legislature voted for The Trident Technical College Enterprise Campus Authority Act in April, but groundbreaking hasn't happened. Before investing in a movie studio complex, production companies like to see enough movie- making activity to support such an investment. Even film production companies understand clustering, so S.C. will have to build up its movie- making businesses before it gets its first movie studio. N.C. already has eight.

Stiff standards

The Citadel military college is adding 400 urn niches to a carillon tower that holds one of the country's largest collection of Dutch bells. The urns are for departed alumni ashes.

Blessing of the fleet

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) opened state waters to commercial shrimp trawling May 23. The decision to open the season came after biologists with DNR sampled state waters and determined an adequate number of roe shrimp had spawned.

Just put a flag on top of the capitol

Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy has seen attendance drop by half over the past decade, during which time the museum has been losing about $400,000 a year. The museum is about to sell its $7 million site to raise cash.

Best in class

The Columbia Conference Center, the privately funded facility behind Sam Jones's Hampton Automotive, was presented ConventionSouth magazine's 2006 Readers' Choice Award for the third consecutive year.

Did you know how big it got?

Arizona State University has 51,000 students on its main campus in Tempe, 10,000 more at three branches, 280 majors, three schools of business, and more than 600 student clubs. After another 10 years, Arizona State expects to have 90,000 students.

Cotton

China is the largest raw cotton importer in the world, responsible for about 34% of the world's cotton imports. S.C. planted about 300,000 acres of cotton in 2005. A delegation from China was in Columbia last week as part of their tour to purchase 350,000 metric tons of USA cotton worth nearly $400 million. The formal cotton contract signing ceremony was in Memphis Friday, May 18.

Speaking of China

China recently announced it was placing $3 billion of its foreign reserves with Blackstone, the U.S. private equity group. China's foreign reserves total $1.2 trillion, and about $300 billion are being transferred to a new Chinese agency designed to diversify management of foreign exchange reserves in search of higher investment returns - getting out of U.S. Treasuries. Other countries are doing something similar under the term sovereign wealth funds, or SWF. There are 25 SWFs in the world, all with a total of maybe $2.5 trillion, which could have a big impact on financial markets. The U.S. stock markets' bulls should keep running. This winter, S.C. Budget and Control Board bragged it pulled in 5.25% on its investments last year, about one point less than the average annual return for all stocks on the New York Stock Exchange since 1926.

Speaking of money

According to the Money Fund Report, money- market funds totaled $2.433 trillion in mid- May, a record. The average 30- day compound yield was an annual 4.84%.

Hemingway

"Let me tell you about the very rich," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. "They are different from you and me." "Yeah, they have more money," wryly observed Ernest Hemingway. USC's Hemingway collection, bought in 2001 for $2 million donated by alumnus Edward S. Hallman, has been enhanced with an additional $3 million gift from Hallman, who died in February.

S.C. unemployment

S.C.'s jobless rate fell to 5.8% in April, third highest in the country. Michigan had 7.1%; Mississippi, 6.8%; and Alaska tied with S.C. at 5.8%.

Holy City gets Democrats' debate

Charleston will be the host for a nationally televised face- off among the presidential candidates chasing the Democrats' nomination, Monday, July 23.

Congratulations to Brian Highsmith

Columbia's Highsmith saw his letter to the editor published in The New York Times, May 4.

Congratulations to Bo Aughtry

Greenville's Bo Aughtry, developer of Columbia's new Hilton on Senate Street, was nominated recently by Gov. Sanford to chair the Department of Health and Environmental Control Board. Aughtry is also on the board of the S.C. State Ports Authority.

Congratulations to Joel Stevenson

Columbia's Joel Stevenson, director of the USC/Columbia Technology Incubator, was elected to the board of directors of the National Business Incubation Association.