okay uh could you give me your thoughts on uh on any trends
well uh longer term trends i think that uh like past oh ten or fifteen years uh
there there there seems to be a a
trend and maybe it's longer than that of of politics is is strictly a what can i get for me or what can i get for my group and not what's
best for the whole uh kind of a thing uh does that make any sense or
yeah um you're talking about the uh political action committees and uh
i mean the
yeah political action committees that and i think it i think it ties in with the the budget deficit that uh the
Congress and and uh is is they get they get reelected by what they do for their districts uh in terms of bringing in and bringing in money and and uh
right
in order to bring in money for their district they've got to vote to spend it in other districts and and uh the heck with the overall uh deficit and it
yeah
districts is geographical but it can just as well be interest groups in terms of of uh
whether it's Social Security or or anything that that uh it's it's what what you get for your constituents one way or another not what what's necessarily good overall
yeah we're uh we feel it up here in New England because we're small states so we don't have the represent and representatives that
yeah
that the larger states have you know like like Texas and California um but we've got we have political clout only because of the tenure of the people that are in there like for uh uh the sub
yeah
like Texas yeah
yeah
building you know Gratin and they're building down in Newport now
yeah okay but you
but once uh somebody's got to do it somebody's got to build the subs and i guess Virginia can do it also in fact i've got a a
yeah
the latest contract that was awarded Virginia sued or has got a lawsuit against uh Gratin to stop construction because it was unfairly obtained or something like that you know
yeah and uh yeah but let's see you you do have uh long time uh long time power people there in terms of i mean Rhode Island's got uh
right
this um
Powell and Chaffey and and and been in the senate forever and uh
Powell yep yep
yep
but when those when those people leave uh the power's going to go um there isn't really anything here because we're not really big enough so the economy is going to going to suffer i think because the the
yeah
yeah
the base that New England always had the textile base the uh the uh costume jewelry base most of that now has moved out here to overseas to overseas or down south so we're prone to
yep yep
um uh recessions like the rest of the country were before we were kind of stable uh the political power is the only thing that can stabilize it at least i think up up this neck of the woods
yeah
yeah
yeah
but there's too many now uh political action committees and where the money is coming from is coming from those states that have the big industries that can afford to contribute to those
yeah
so those are going to get uh uh the squeaky wheel gets the oil they're going to they're going to catch it and somebody has to do it somebody has to do the work like Boeing or General Dynamics or wherever wherever they happen to be you know you've you've only got a few plane factories or
yeah
well
well i guess i guess i'm a little more cynical than that i'm not i'm not sure that it that all of it has to be done even but uh
well i i think they should be outlawed myself the the the packs i don't think they should be
uh but well in it
well i
but i i mean in terms of of not necessarily all the planes that the government buys they really need or not necessarily well in in in in particular uh planes and i
true
you know i see this here in in Texas that that uh got uh
oh i can't even remember which of the companies it is but they've they've got a they've got a tilt rotor
uh plane that they've developed and they want to sell but developed for the defense department department and defense department is saying well no we we don't we don't really need it it's going to be too expensive and it's not going to do what we need and
oh like the yeah
yep yep
the the Texas people are fighting to have it built for just to just to keep and create jobs here
right yep
rather than because it's uh you know they they they certainly use the words well it's needed but but uh
yeah
look at look at the tanks now look at that New Abrams tank
yeah
and i have no idea what the cost is uh five million ten million
no
for each one now you can make you can make a a missile or or a hand held rocket that can take one of those out pretty effectively
yep
what what do we need all the tanks for
i mean you can make you make you can make probably a thousand rockets for each tank
right
yeah yeah
and you can give a thousand rockets of a relatively uninvolved uninvolved untrained uh person and he can take he can take one of those tanks out
yep
but yet i'm not sure who is it Chrysler that makes the tanks or one of one of the
i think i i think maybe so and i think that or
and i don't think we really need all that hardware and again and again like the Stealth bombers and and some of these things they they put on their drawing boards and they never fly or they never they never run right
yeah yeah
yeah
yeah
um is it because of of political clout
yeah
rather than need i think in a lot of cases yes
yeah yeah
but we don't have a watchdog agency to the military overlooks their own testing
yeah
which is good for us i mean it creates you know we generate a lot of income at TI because of the military contacts
right right right you know that's true too but do you see any other trends or particularly interesting events that come to your mind
um the savings and loans crisis
yeah
the political trends there are are most most of these people are lawyers that are now in in uh
the government whether it's state or local most of them i guess you've been reading about the problems we've had in Rhode Island where the governor closed down a lot of the the uh credit unions and banks
yeah
because of uh it was privately insured but but stated
well it certainly did certainly did when he first did it but i haven't heard about it for a while i was at are there
yeah there's still a lot of people that uh still can't get their money out
can't yeah
um they still have to pay their their bills like their mortgages and things they slip them under the door to the bank and but yet they can't get any of their savings
so it's it's it's a little bit difficult but most of the people there the trend was that on almost every single board of the institutions that were closed they were state legislators
huh
yeah
so they had a conflict of interest because they tried to get through uh a bill stating that they had to have federal insurance rather than private insurance and it was squashed
yep
yeah
