John Garamendi: “Thank you very much for that perspective on agriculture. I have been in agriculture all of my life. I run a ranch. I…”

“Thank you very much for that perspective on agriculture. I have been in agriculture all of my life. I run a ranch. I know that the men and women that are in agriculture in California, they need to be able to finance their operations. These are not easy times, they need to extend their credit. They are going to come back, they have in the past, but they really need that credit. But what we have seen very, very clearly in the last year is that Wall Street is interested in their profits. I put this one up, but here's the one that makes me mad. This is what really upsets me. We're looking at 2007, the $137 billion of bonuses for Wall Street executives. 2008, that was in the midst of the great crash, it came down to zero. After they had caused this crisis, after they had lost trillions of dollars of retirement funds, the value of homes collapsing, they still rewarded themselves with $123 billion of bonuses. And then 2009, as we began to come out of this, instead of lending $145 billion to your farmers, to your dairy men, to the men and women that want to manufacture and create jobs, no, no, they gave it to themselves, $145 billion of bonuses.”