All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Despite signs that the party was long over, there were diehards still dancing on Wall Street - until Ken Feinberg turned off the music.

He's in charge of overseeing executive pay at seven companies that received the most in bailout bucks. Today, he announced that cash salaries will be cut by as much as 90 percent, and total compensation packages by half. As for those free rides on private planes and in limousines, any perks beyond 25 thousand dollars need to be approved by the government.

Americans had a hard time watching firms like Citigroup and AIG pay out huge bonuses...when they were teetering on the brink of collapse.

Critics of the proposed cuts say the big salaries attract the best talent - and that capitalism keeps the government out of private sector pay.

But Wall Street's seven figure svengalis got us into this mess in the first place. And taxpayers kept them afloat. Now isn't the time to pat themselves on the back. A little humility, not hubris, is in order.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

Dean Reynolds is a CBS News Correspondent based in Chicago.

To say times are tough economically in this country is an understatement. But the sheriff of Alexander County, Illinois has set a new standard for deprivation. Sheriff David Barkett had his official cruisers repossessed by the local bank in the county seat of Cairo.

Usually, when you see a lot of sheriff’s cruisers in a bank parking lot it means a crime has been committed. Say, a bank robbery. But not now. Four of Barkett’s five cruisers (the fifth one is in the shop for repairs) now sit humiliatingly in the lot of the First National Bank of Cairo, shorn of their emergency lights, antennae and even their seals. You can see the faint outline of them on the suddenly denuded cruisers.

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Katie Couric is off today.

It's that time of year again as millions of children enjoy their last few days of freedom before heading back to school.

By Labor Day weekend, the drug store stationary aisles usually look ransacked as kids and parents alike grab all the notebooks, protractors and pencil sharpeners they can cram into a cart.

But that's not the case this year.

The tough economic times have people cutting back on school supplies. A USA Today poll found that 65 percent of families are buying only the bare essentials, and the majority of parents are hunting discount stores for the best bargains.

Some families can't afford school supplies at all.

So, if you're fortunate enough to have a few dollars to spare this season, consider donating extra supplies and backpacks to a local children's charity.

The first day of school is exciting for kids, and it's even better when they have all the tools they need to succeed.

I'm Maggie Rodriguez, CBS News.

When we started working on a story about resume fraud and whether more people were lying on their resumes now because the job market is so tight, our biggest challenge was finding someone who would admit he or she lied on their resume. No easy task.

I called some of the big names who made news when their stretching of the truth became public, like George O'Leary, the former Notre Dame Coach who lied about his education and college football career and David Edmondson, the former CEO of Radio Shack who lied about a college degree on his resume. Maybe they'd want to talk to us and provide a cautionary tale to any job seeker who might be thinking of embellishing or outright lying in these recessionary times. Not a chance. They weren't interested or didn't return my calls.

>Don Teague is a CBS News Correspondent in the Dallas bureau.

There are three words that bring joy to the hearts of parents, and dread to their children. Three words that feel like freedom for grownups, and prison for kids. Three words, that seem to get more expensive every year:

Back to School

I have to admit, that even 25 plus years after graduating high school, I still get a little nervous adrenaline rush on the first day of a school year. I guess most of us never completely recover from high school.

In Texas, about 4.8 million public school students went back to school this morning after the long summer break, my two teenaged daughters among them. They joined millions of other kids around the country who are now trying to figure out if they got the hard history teacher or the easy one, a good locker location or a bad one, if this will finally be the year they keep that pledge to do their homework early.

I, on the other hand, am joining the millions of parents doing serious checkbook math today, trying to figure where all the money went.

I actually know where it went. I just can’t quite believe it.

At a town meeting hosted by Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania resident stood up to say that the health care debate has "awakened the sleeping giant."

Not exactly.

What's it's done, it seems, is stirred a hornets nest, and uncovered disturbing attitudes and emotions that have nothing to do with policy.

Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the President is speaking?

How does a swastika spray-painted on a Congressman's office further a discussion about Medicare?

These are tough and challenging times and lots of people are scared about their jobs and the economy. But we can't let fear and frankly ignorance - drown out the serious debate that needs to take place - about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people.

It's time for everyone to take a deep breath and to focus on the task at hand before this sideshow drowns out the main event.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

Consider these statistics for a moment. 62 percent of college seniors have four or more credit cards. That's not a typo. Four or more. Crazy, right? With an average balance on these cards of more than $4,000 these seniors are entering the real world already saddled with hefty credit card debt.

For our Children of the Recession piece airing tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, I interviewed Shanetta Francis, a recent graduate of Trenton High School in New Jersey who could not wait to get her hands on plastic.

"Because I heard so much about credit cards and how they raise your limit and you can get black cards and gold cards or platinum cards and I was like I cannot wait until I turn 18," she told me.

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We've all heard that urban legend - a pet alligator that gets too big too fast - and winds up flushed down the toilet.

Well, it turns out the story is true, but it's not about Gators. It's about Crocs.

It seemed for a while you couldn't cross the street without catching a glimpse of those plastic clogs - like a rainbow army of Muppet feet all around you.

More than 100,000,000 of them were sold, and the company borrowed millions of dollars to produce more.

Trouble is, the shoe that was flying off the shelves two years ago became well, very two years ago.

Now, the Washington Post reports that the company has until September to pay the money back - and the Croc is in serious danger of going the way of the Earth shoe.

But we now know how that urban legend ends: it grows and comes back with a vengeance. Maybe Crocs can, too. Perhaps they'll re-emerge after going underground or in this case, spending some time in the back of the closet.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

It could be a break for parents struggling to pay tuition bills in this tough economy. More colleges offer a four-year education in just three years. It doesn't take a calculus major to figure out that could save some serious cash.

The schools insist they're not cutting corners. Some would have students take courses in the summer, or online. Others would adjust schedules to cram in more class time.

It's a great alternative for the right student, but a three-year plan might not be for everyone. In fact, almost 40 percent of college graduates take more than four years to earn their degrees, and the intensity of a three-year program might mean skipping school sports or missing a chance to write for the campus newspaper.

College is about a lot more than text books and tuition. It's when teens grow into young adults and figure out what they want to be. That generally happens on their own time, no matter what the stock market is doing.

That's a page from my notebook.

This was one of those stories that evolved while we were shooting. Our assignment was to look at the psychological impact of the recession on young people for our network-wide series, "Children of the Recession.” As we conducted background research we chatted with psychologists who spoke to the idea that in the early stages of development any changes can be disruptive to young people. We decided to focus our piece on teenagers for whom "fitting in" is particularly important.

We set out to profile one teenage girl, Kristen Beltran, who lives in Montclair, Calif. When we visited her school, Montclair High School, we saw how schools are becoming the first line of defense for many students when their parents are no longer able to provide as much at home. Our story started to shifted focus a bit to reflect some of the stories we heard at Montclair High.

CBS Evening News Producer Karen Raffensperger had identified Kristen as a person to profile after she came across her blog entries. Kristen vented her frustrations about the impact of the recession on her own life. Her dad (a welder) is not working as much these days and that has strained the family's finances. At 15 years old, she'd love to get a job to help her parents pay some of their bills, but her parents will not let her because they want her to focus on schoolwork.


CBS Evening News Producer Karen Raffensperger had identified Kristen as a person to profile after she came across her blog entries. Kristen vented her frustrations about the impact of the recession on her own life. Her dad (a welder) is not working as much these days and that has strained the family's finances. At 15 years old, she'd love to get a job to help her parents pay some of their bills, but her parents will not let her because they want her to focus on schoolwork.



On the front stoop of their home, Kristen's dad admitted to me that tension is growing within the family. Kristen's mother Betty explained, as we sat around a table in the back yard, that it's "our job as parents to protect our children." For Betty and her husband "protecting the kids" means keeping some of the specifics about family finances between themselves. However, Kristen says that can be counter-productive as she's aware of what is going on and only feels more helpless.

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