Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is receiving heavy criticism for controversial and insensitive remarks he has made in the past about women, African Americans and now farmers.
The former New York City mayor once said at a 2016 Oxford University forum in England that farmers don't need as much brainpower for their jobs as do those working in the information economy, where Bloomberg has made billions of dollars.
Bloomberg said, "I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that."
He continued, "Then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow, and you can have a job."
Finally, he added, "Now comes the information economy and (it) is fundamentally different because it’s built around replacing people with technology and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set, you have to have a lot more gray matter."