All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

What do you think is the best idea for a new business?

1) Taco ingredient home delivery
2) Flavored ice cubes - for those who want a hint of lemon in their drinks, but don’t want to use an actual lemon.
3) A bar on wheels
4) A taxi cab where people don't have to pay if they don’t want to.

And no, you can’t say "none of the above."

These ideas are all the brain children of 46-year-old Eric Hagen of Burlington, Vermont. For the last several months he’s been trying to come up with a way to supplement his income.

Fortunately for Eric, he does have a day job. He helps run blood drives for the Red Cross. Also fortunately for Eric, his friends talked him out of actually following through on any of his ideas. All but one, that is.

A few weeks ago Eric started the "Recession Ride Taxi Service."
His motto is "Pay What You Want."

I went up to Burlington this week to meet Eric because, believe it or not, he’s actually making money. Yes, some people don’t pay the going rate. But many others are paying MORE than the going rate. They say they like the idea of being trusted to pay a fare that's fair. Eric's convinced he’s stumbled on a new business model. Although when I asked him what other businesses might be able to use "pay what you want" pricing, he struggled, "um…delivery services, ahh, other taxi cabs, umm, couriers, ahh, delivery services…"

Too bad. I was hoping to get a steal on a new car.

To see Eric’s full story, please tune in for tonight's Assignment America on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

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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I visited the camp for our "Children of the Recession" story which airs tonight on We wanted to explore whether the recession has prompted more parents and teachers to start teaching kids Finance 101.

At least 50 eight and nine year olds were seated on the floor in front of me and I asked them questions such as: why is it important to save, what's a credit card, etc. but then I wondered if any of them actually knew someone who lost a job so I asked.

I never expected such a huge response.

Easily, three-quarters of them raised their hands.

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Lucky assignment, right? My senior producer, Kim Godwin, called me to ask if I "might be free to go to the Cayman Islands" to follow the "Financial Family Tree" as it wound its way through the Caribbean. My response, clearly, did not require much thought: "yes".

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As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

With the national unemployment rate hovering at about 9 percent, there are roughly 14 million people out there in need of a job. Some companies say they've received hundreds of applications for just a single opening.

CareerBuilder.com reports that in order to stand out from the pack, job seekers are getting creative.

One man sent a shoe to his prospective employer with a note that read, "I want to get my foot in the door."

Another handed out personalized coffee cups, so no one would forget his name.

One in five managers says they've received one of these unusual trinkets from applicants.

It might sound a little weird or creepy, but experts say these gimmicks can work, if used sparingly and with some common sense.

After all, you don't want your resume to end up with that paper coffee cup - down in the circular file.

That's a page from my notebook.

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.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane talks with 13-year-old Lewis Roman.

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My favorite part of this job is getting the chance to sit down and chat with someone I'd never normally meet. The microphone can sometimes act as a little passport into a stranger's life …

You talk with a lot of people in the course of a week or month in this line of work and sometimes someone sticks out from the rest. On this story it was 13-year-old Lewis Roman, whom I met in a shelter in Philadelphia. Lewis sleeps in one room with his mother, brothers, and sister while he goes to school and tries to have a normal teenage life. We were there to talk with Lewis about hunger and he tells his story in tonight's latest "Children of the Recession" piece on the CBS Evening News piece.

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I'll never forget that night back in 1975.

I wore a long white eyelet dress and a white hat, and Ernie, my date, wore white tails and carried a walking stick.

I'm not sure what look we were trying to achieve, but I know we danced to "Stairway to Heaven."

Today it might be Lady Gaga or T-Pain bringing on the boogie, but the rite of passage known as prom remains the same.

This year, many students are cutting costs because of the recession. Some schools have made tuxedos optional, limo rentals are down, and in an online poll from Seventeen.com, 60 percent of teens say they'll spend less than $200 on the big night - total.

But it's not about how much you spend. It's about spending time with your friends, and making memories that are priceless.

And, I'll let you in on a secret. No matter what you wear to your prom 20 years from now, your children will make fun of it.

That, too, is a rite of passage.

That's a page from my notebook.

There is one quote that really stuck with me when we were researching ideas for tonight’s story on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric about college students graduating into the recession. “Damn me for being born in ’87,” Suzanne Block told The Chicago Tribune back in March before graduating. “This is just a nightmare. There could not be a worse time to be looking for a job.”

Oh how right Suzanne is. Employers say they’ll hire 22 percent fewer grads this year versus last year. And while 51 percent of college seniors looking for jobs found one before leaving campus back in 2007, less than 20 percent were as fortunate this year.

Desperate times call for desperate measures? Well, maybe not desperate but unusual, creative approaches to the job hunt seem to be the norm, not the exception, as students try to find a way to stand out. Remember, today’s graduates are not only competing against their peers but against experienced 20-somethings and baby boomers who lost their jobs and are anxiously trying to find new ones.

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Katie's off today. This is Randall Pinkston.

Every year, more than one million American children experience homelessness, according to a recent study. That's one in 50. Perhaps a parent got laid off and there was no money for rent, or maybe the family home was lost to a bank foreclosure. Whatever the reason, it's a story that keeps repeating in cities all around the country.

These children aren't all living in cardboard boxes or sleeping under a bridge. Many are in temporary shelters or motel rooms, often in cramped and uncomfortable situations that are a long way from a real home. Those who are able to stay in school may show side effects like low self-esteem and lower grades. The emotional scars they are developing could be there for many years to come.

With two million additional home foreclosures expected in the coming months, we could see more kids with no space to call their own, children who are forced to bear the burden of adult problems, though they share none of the blame.