OPEN LETTER

August 7, 2006

Mr. John Rainey

720 Albion Road

Columbia, SC 29205

Dear Mr. Rainey,

I apologize. I didn’t realize that when I didn’t bow to your demands, I was in effect, rejecting South Carolina’s “Kingmaker”.

After doing a little research on you, I realized that when politicians refuse to compromise their principles for you, it has been your custom to whine about it to the media. You have done this on many occasions, whether you’re bashing sound, new Republican ideas like prosperity-producing tax cuts, choice and competition in education, or arrogantly making political demands of me. It seems that, rather than support new ideas to help solve real problems facing our state’s taxpayers, you cling to the status quo -- the old ideas that came out of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society -- most of which had unintended consequences that far outweighed their intended benefits.

After my research, I realized how natural it is for you to attempt to bolster the campaign of Mr. Patterson. His financial strategies haven’t changed since the 1960^s, resulting in South Carolina once again lagging behind the other 49 states, and a $27 billion unfunded liability for our teachers, firemen, policemen and other state employees retirement fund… which, unless corrected, will require a massive taxpayer bailout.

Perhaps, Mr. Rainey, you didn’t realize that, in just the last three years, the state’s investment plan has under-performed the median return of the other states by 70%! If Mr. Patterson’s returns had merely achieved mediocrity during this time, our retirement system would have an extra $5 billion. In fact, during the greatest economic expansion in the history of mankind -- between 1980-1999, a time when Mr. Patterson controlled 100% of the investments -- he essentially took the taxpayer’s money and buried it in the backyard… all the while painting a rosy, but misleading, picture for other state officials and the taxpayers.

Mr. Rainey, I am offering you some unsolicited advice, from someone who actually worked to earn success in business, rather than inheriting a fortune as you did: Before you take to name-calling me again in French (“Dilettante”) – you might want to read the attached book I just bought for you.

It’s called Economics for Dummies.

Sincerely,

Thomas Ravenel