Byron Dorgan: “if there is a cure for insomnia, as I said the other day, this kind of debate surely must be it. This is so arcane and…”

“if there is a cure for insomnia, as I said the other day, this kind of debate surely must be it. This is so arcane and technical, to be talking about antitrust issues and VIII(C) and section 271, and all of these issues that almost no one understands. They seem not very important to many, I am sure. I suppose most who would listen to this would think it incredibly boring. But, in fact, it is very, very important. We have a market system in this country that works only when there is competition. When you don't have competition, the market system doesn't work. We have something called a referee several places in this Government: One at Justice, in the Antitrust Division; we have a referee function in the Federal Trade Commission. In fact, we have 1,000 attorneys, roughly, I understand, whose job it is to deal with antitrust issues and the issues of monopoly and so on. The purpose is to make sure that we don't have enterprises, where people come in and grab markets and develop trusts or monopolies and extract from the consumers a price that is unfair, a price that is not set in an open market or an open competition. That is what this antitrust enforcement is about.”