expanded into movie theaters buying the loew's chain, the cigarette business through lora lard and bulova watches. today they own hotels in the u.s. and canada, natural gas pipelines and diamond offshore drilling. tisch says his businesses are growing even though the economy is, quote, lukewarm. >> i think the economy is doing reasonably well. for the past five years the economy was growing at 2%. and my sense is that going forward now for the next year my fearless forecast is that it's good to grow by 3%. that may not sound like a big difference, but it really is. and i think it will make a big difference in corporate earnings. i think it will make a big difference over time about how people feel about the economy. i think it will make some difference. >> as you know, the federal reserve is meeting this weekend, the consensus is that policymakers will start raising interest rates in the middle of next year. how do you feel about that? are they doing the right thing? and will higher rates help or hurt your businesses? >> higher rates will help our business. we've had zero interest rate po

that was one of the game-changers that chairman bulova and chairman all of a working together with congressman wolf, with our governor to get that forwarded is why we were able to get that project going, and i support it and will continue to work with all of you on it. >> robert, a question for delegate comstock. >> the latest estimates suggest u.s. companies are losing a staggering $250 billion every year in intellectual property theft due to two cyber espionage. a report found that fewer than 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a science, technology, engineering, and math actually complete a stem degree. what will you do to expand secondary and higher education programs focused on careers in stem and thus enhance america's cyber security workforce? >> thank you. i know telos is such a leader on cyber security, so thank you. we do have more members of the chamber working on national security and cyber security. that is something we can do. on the education front, we have been doing that in virginia. we passed a higher education bill very much focused on them, stem, and my