On the recordApril 20, 2010
The salaries are totally out of control; $145 billion in bonus pool to the banks after they have been bailed out by the taxpayer is not acceptable. Everybody, I think on both sides of the aisle, is concerned about greed being too much a part of the culture on Wall Street. But the threat in the long term, as lamentable as the greed is, as not acceptable as $145 million in bonus money is, what Goldman Sachs and others are doing is destroying what banks are about. Our American economy needs a financial sector that's strong and vibrant but that lends money to entrepreneurs, to businesses that are going to create new products, that are going to allow for manufacturing to occur in this country, to families that are trying to buy homes. This recent case about the filing of an SEC lawsuit of civil fraud against Goldman Sachs highlights that they have gone from being an agency, an entity that lends money to a gambling casino.
