New York, NY (CBS) -- MAKING SENSE OF DOLLARS AND CENTS
When the dollar goes down, oil prices go up. But oil prices have fallen for the last three days, the dollar's been surging. And on Wall Street the Dow was up close to 190 points Thursday and the NASDAQ and Standard and Poor's indexes rose sharply too. There's a sense that the sub-prime mortgage crisis and its fallout may have passed the crisis stage. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen said as much yesterday. He said, "we are closer to the end of this problem than we are to the beginning."
There's also a relationship between the price of oil and the price of food. That's worldwide. But we're feeling it here too.
"Well I could buy a weeks worth of food for 40 dollars, and now it's more like 100, and it's the same stuff," said one Seattle consumer.
"And for the price we pay it's ridiculous," said a second Seattle consumer.
"I had to just adjust, you know less is more," said a third Seattle consumer.
Because it takes petroleum fuels to power tractors and other farm equipment, and the trucks to deliver food, and because a lot of our farmland is now devoted to ethanol. The price of food has risen sharply here and everywhere else. You can see it at the supermarket.
"From aisle to aisle, shelf to shelf, including everything from staples to special treats, the prices families are paying to fill their shopping carts go up and up and up," said Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York.
"The price of milk, cheese, chicken, eggs, ground beef, regular stuff, nothing fancy, are way up. If you're trying to eat healthier, it's even worse," said Schumer.
More people are using coupons now.
"Majority of coupons come from the Sunday newspaper. But there are also coupons available in the mailbox, at your doorstep, even on the Internet today," said Charles Brown, Vice President of Marketing, NCH Marketing Services.
A lot more.
"In the last year in 2007 we saw a hundred million more grocery coupons redeemed," said Brown.
Gardening, anybody?
"You can literally live without buying food once your fruits and vegetables start growing," said Cassie Parker, runs a community garden in New York City.
POINTING THE FINGER AT FINGERPRINTING
DNA may be the gold standard evidence for identifying a criminal suspect, but far more common, and more useful to law enforcement investigators and prosecutors are old fashion fingerprints, criminologists say.
"It's the most common physical evidence that we find, you know, at a crime scene, all right. Cause when two objects touch each other they take on characteristics of each other. And there's always fingerprints everywhere," says Tom Mauriello, Criminology Professor, University of Maryland.
But are they proof positive? Some forensic experts say no.
"Without question, fingerprint evidence is considered to be by juries actual evidence of guilt. Incontrovertible evidence of guilt. And, unfortunately, the reality is far different than that," said Patrick Kent, Attorney, Maryland Public Defender's Office.
On our CBS television broadcast this "Sunday Morning," Erin Moriarity does a fascinating inquiry into fingerprinting, the old reliable of criminal identification. Former policeman Tom Mauriello, now a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland.
"We have never found two people with the same fingerprints. We've never said hey these two fingerprints are the same and they come from two different people. We've never done that," said Mauriello.
But it's not that reliable, says Patrick Kent of the Maryland Public Defender's Office.
"It's never been tested. It's never been shown to be accurate. They don't know how many times they get it right. They don't know how many times they get it wrong. They don't even have a standard way that they do fingerprint comparisons," said Kent.
Erin Moriarity spoke with Brandon Mayfield, an American lawyer who converted to Islam who was arrested by FBI agents in the terrorist commuter train bombs in Madrid on the strength of fingerprint evidence at the scene.
"Honestly, my first reaction, Erin, was I honestly felt that I was being framed because I hadn't been out of the country for ten years," said Mayfield.
Spanish investigators found the man whose prints they thought were Mayfield's. Mayfield was given a public apology and a two-million-dollar legal settlement. The whole story when I see you on the television come Sunday Morning on CBS.
COLLEGE COSTS: WHO'S BENEFITING?
College tuitions keep rising, but a new independent study questions whether the students are getting their money's worth.
"As a country we are slipping behind in the proportion of students who are getting both to college and through college. We used to be first in the world. we're now somewhere between ninth and 11th," said Jane Wellman, Executive Director, Delta Cost Project.
Wellman is author of the study. Where does the money go?
"It's going into building economic development, it's going into student aid. These aren't necessarily bad things. But it's not clear that the way the money is getting spent is helping us get more kids both to and through college," said Wellman.
In other words--
"Students are paying more and they're getting less," said Wellman.
Student’s tuitions are paying an ever-bigger share of a college's budget. But what's subsidized is the institution, based in part on enrollment.
"Maybe we should not subsidize colleges on the basis of the number of students enrolled, but rather on the number of students who graduate," said Richard Vedder, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
"We could give money to students rather than to institutions, that is the federal and state governments could give more aid that they give to colleges directly to the students so the students are more in control," said Vedder.
The colleges say quality requires the things they are spending money on. Vedder doesn't deny that.
"But the question is, when kids pay tuition, isn't that tuition money going to educate them. Isn't the purpose of the payment to provide educational services to those students," said Vedder.
Good question.
"Since 40-45 percent of the students who enter college fail to graduate within six years, I think there is considerable justification in asking the question," said Vedder.
KEEPING YOUR GENETICS SECRET
There are questions a company interviewer is not supposed to ask a prospective employee, because even asking the question suggests the possibility of discrimination of one kind or another. In that spirit, Congress has now passed, and President Bush will no doubt sign a bill prohibiting employers or insurance companies from using any information gathered from genetic testing in their decisions to hire or not hire, fire, promote or insure any body.
Researchers want this bill because Americans have been refusing to take genetic tests, or using false names, because they don't want such information used against them.
When you are being interviewed or asked on a form you're filling out not only your medical history, or your driving record, whether you've ever smoked or taken drugs, what your parents died of, it's because the past can be predictive of the future. What they're getting at is some idea of the risk they're taking.
Some people don't ever want to go to the doctor, even when they're sick, because they're afraid they'll find out something they don't want to find out.
Things like smoking and driving history are ok to ask about because you have some control over these things. But you can't control your gender, skin color, race or national origin. You're born with those things
Genetic testing can reveal mutations that make you more susceptible to certain diseases. We all have them. Nobody's perfect, as they say. And it's good for you and your doctor to know what they are so you can watch out for them and modify your behavior accordingly.
Or you could just go out and bury your head in the sand.
|
