read more posts by
John Murphy
Here’s another article discussing how Greenville, SC is on the rise. My wife and I had been watching Greenville, SC for almost 10 years and finally decided to move here about three years ago. It has continued to get better and the food scene here is quite good. Here’s the latest article from Southern Living Magazine.
Greenville is booming no doubt. It’s getting more attention from all over the place it seems. Is it a great place for real estate investors? I think it’s increasingly becoming so. One thing to remember here is that real estate investors typically pay about 3x the property taxes than a homeowner would pay. So on a $350,000 where the property taxes might be $1,700-$2,000, the investor property is going to be between $5,000 – $6,000 per year.
But that said, it’s a strong rental market with strong demand. Check out this article from Roofstock as they look at Greenville, SC from a real estate investment perspective. It’s very informative.
Something must be going on….yesterday I heard that Vanderbilt University sent out communications stating that they would no longer require vaccines of their employees and students…now we see a similar statement from Bon Secours which appeared to be the last hold out here in the Upstate health care system that was requiring the Covid vaccines for employment. Something is a foot and of course they aren’t going to tell us what the real reason is behind the change of opinion.
Here’s the e-mail that went out from Bon Secours CEO, Matt Caldwell. It makes no mention of the ministry leadership as they had done in their previous communications just a couple of days ago on December 2, 2021 that stated everyone MUST get the vaccine. But Mr. Caldwell makes sure to plug his opinion that the institution believes in the importance of the vaccine but they are no longer going to require it. I wonder if there are some possible serious legal liabilities that will eventually be exposed for these companies and institutions that pushed to get their employees vaccinated or lose employment? Only time will tell. Can someone please remind me again why we should ever listen to the medical establishment when it comes to Covid and the Covid vaccines and therapeutics? While we’re at it, what else have they maybe pushed on an unsuspecting and gullible American public in terms of health care, drugs, medical treatments and procedures?
For now many in Greenville, SC are breathing a huge sigh of relief. Hopefully this will spread to other companies in the area such as Michelin and GE.
I’ll leave you with Willie Nelson and “Just Breathe.”
What a gorgeous evening for the Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade last night! Thousands showed up to celebrate this wonderful tradition. Very few maskers were seen in the crowd. Most of those walking, riding or performing in the parade also were not wearing masks either, thank God.
Last year’s event was cancelled of course because of all the Covid hysteria. It was great to see that the City of Greenville has mostly come to its senses when it comes to allowing large public events. This comes on the heels of a MASSIVE turnout for Fall for Greenville just a few weeks ago. BTW, I have not heard of a single case of COVID, DELTA or some other cold variant being transmitted due to that event.
It was a wondering parade starting promptly at 6pm and ending at 6:55pm. The Furman marching band was terrific and led the parade through Main Street. There were lots of other high school marching bands, dance schools, local media, roofing contractors and musical groups among the floats. Thousands lined both sides of Main Street in a wonderful, peaceful community event. I’ve said it’s the best Christmas parade I’ve ever attended. Some have laughed at me saying I haven’t been to much then, but I have to disagree. Sure there are other events where they have more spectacular floats and probably bigger crowds, but to experience this in the gorgeous setting of downtown Greenville on a beautiful evening is hard to beat. BTW, it was 70 degrees at 5:30pm as we were waiting for the parade to start.
If you haven’t attended one of these parades, put it on your list to go next year!
Companies continue to press ahead with the vaccine mandates. There are three big medical systems here in the Upstate…Prisma, Bon Secours and Spartanburg Regional. I’ve been hearing different things about what each is requiring of their employees when it comes to vaccine mandates. From what I’ve heard Spartanburg Regional has been giving exemptions. I believe Prisma’s mandate is temporarily on hold for now. However, “Catholic” Bon Secours is pressing on despite the judicial injunctions temporarily halting Biden’s vaccine mandate. How liberal they will be with exemptions is still to be seen. As I talk with people who work at big companies in general, they are not stopping despite recent court injuctions.
This e-mail that was purportedly sent to Bon Secours employees today. Note the elusive and mysterious “ministry” leadership. It seems to be a nice way to deflect from any one particular person being held responsible for this decision. Maybe all the employees know who the “ministry” leadership is but that would be great to know and see a public link to remind them who made this judgement call on the vaccine mandate. Does Bon Secours consider their multi-billion business a ministry? 🙂 I suppose. Seems like a stretch to me. But whatever…they are pushing ahead with the vaccine…maybe it’s what Jesus would want them to do. I don’t know.
People are not happy about this. I realize some of you reading this might be cheering this news on that health care companies are forcing all their employees to get vaccinated. This is not going over well here in South Carolina where there still runs a spirit of freedom and independence. My hope is that the stories about vaccine injuries and deaths are exaggerated and don’t continue to happen. If problems continue, apparently Pfizer, JNJ and Moderna cannot be held liable, but what about these companies pushing their employees to be vaccinated? Might they be held liable? The executives? The boards of directors? Only time will tell.
Yesterday people from all over the Upstate came to protest in front of the entrance to one of GE’s manufacturing facilities in Greenville, SC. In the crowd were some GE employees as well who wanted to make a statement about the newly issued vaccine mandate by the company.
The event took place at about 11am on Thursday, October 21st. I was there and would say the crowd was likely at least 150 people. What was most pronounced at this particular rally or protest were the number of blue collar men who showed up to express their concerns the the overbearing and frankly Un-American demands being made by President Joe Biden and companies like General Electric. One of the groups that has been involved in leading these protests or medical freedom rallies around Greenville is the Greenville County GOP. GC GOP Chairman, Jeff Davis, issued this statement concerning the vaccine mandate by GE.
My understanding from talking with people I know at GE is that the company is handing out both medical and religious exemptions. It doesn’t sound like they are difficult to get and the company is not stringing people along on making the decision whether someone is exempt or not. I did hear that with the medical exemption that the company is requiring a signature from a doctor. Good luck with that. There aren’t many doctors in the country I suspect willing to put their names on something like this. Given the way the country is going, they might be placed on a new enemies list. Here’s WYFF’s story. Note the overhead picture is when the crown had died down a bit so it doesn’t look like many people.
