Byron Dorgan: “in recent months I have been conducting hearings in the subcommittee that I chair and the Commerce Committee on the…”

“in recent months I have been conducting hearings in the subcommittee that I chair and the Commerce Committee on the issue of the Enron scandal. While conducting those hearings, I received a letter from a constituent of mine in North Dakota. That constituent said he had been an employee of the Enron Corporation for a good number of years and had $330,000 in his 401(k) retirement account, invested in Enron stock. And then, of course, Enron collapsed. Now that $330,000 is worth $1,700. The folks at the top of Enron made a fortune and got away with their fortune, and the company collapsed, the employees lost their shirts, and the investors lost their shirts. It is another case of the big doing very well, and the little losing everything they had. It reminds me of the verse in a song by Bob Wells and the Texas Playboys from the 1930s: Little guy picks the cotton, the big guy gets the money. The little bee sucks the blossom, the big bee gets the honey. That is what is going on too often in this country.”