Byron Dorgan: “No; the cow is dead. Because you might be interested in going there, I will tell you that it is a big metal cow that…”

“No; the cow is dead. Because you might be interested in going there, I will tell you that it is a big metal cow that sits on a hill. My point is that we have a fare structure that says you can go twice as far and pay half as much. Or, if you choose, if you want to go half as far, you get to pay twice as much. People talk about bureaucrats, and the discussion here a while ago was about bureaucrats and the HMO issue. I can't think of many Americans who could sit down and develop a rate structure that says, 'You know, we are going to tell people that if they will just go farther, we will cut their ticket in half, but if they don't go as far, we will double their price,' and think that marketing strategy has any relevance at all. That has everything to do with competition. Where there isn't competition, they will price at whatever they want to price. Where there is competition, of course, prices must come down because that is the regulator in the competitive system.”