60 MINUTES {DERIVATIVES; THE LANGUAGE FACTOR; WASHINGTON STATION} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of news magazine programs. In the first segment, "Derivatives," Steve Kroft looks into the financial investments that caused Orange County, California, to experience "the largest municipal bankruptcy in history." According to one financial expert interviewed, the investment vehicles -- known as derivatives -- consist of large-scale gambling by financial investors. Derivatives are incredibly complicated, Kroft explains, and to prove his point he presents a quick montage of several different mathematicians and financiers attempting and failing to explain derivatives in layman's terms. The one thing that is now known about derivatives, Kroft explains, is that they are in the same league as junk bonds and the savings and loan scandal. Kroft interviews an executive at Procter & Gamble who explains that the company lost millions of dollars when an investor invested the company's profits in derivatives. Kroft finishes the segment by warning viewers that they may have derivatives in their personal financial portfolio and may not even know it. In the second segment, "The Language Factor," Morley Safer explores a popular new trend in inner-city education: "Operative English" classes. Safer interviews several teachers who support the program, explaining that students will be denied jobs later in life if they are allowed to use casual street language. A headhunter that Safer interviews confirms this viewpoint, and Safer sits down with a group of kids to learn about their unique slang. The kids are all amused by Safer's attempts to adopt the argot, and while they speak slang with their friends, they say that they would use "proper English" to speak to Safer if they saw him on the street. Safer's final interview is with a woman who says that certain African-American pronunciations (the example she uses is the substitution of the word "axe" for "ask") can be historically traced to a variety of original African dialects. In the third segment, "Washington Station," Mike Wallace interviews two former KGB agents about the inner workings of their intelligence agency. The agents reveal that the KGB headquarters in Washington, D.C., at the Russian embassy, were in constant disarray. The agents reveal that when certain agents didn't properly finish their assignments, they would appease their bosses by telegraphing news taken from the headlines of the Washington Post to their bosses, and they would pretend that the news was "highly confidential." The agents also tell Wallace about the various Americans who would wander into the embassy to try to sell legitimate secrets to the Russian government, and one of the agents tells a story about an incompetent agent who told his superiors that he had hired Henry Kissinger to spy for him. In the fourth segment, Andy Rooney discusses where the ideas for his diatribes come from.
Cataloging of this program has been made possible by the Bell Atlantic Foundation, 2000.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: March 5, 1995 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:51
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:63154
- GENRE: Magazine
- SUBJECT HEADING: English language - Slang; Espionage, Soviet; Municipal bankruptcy
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1968-
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - AT&T long distance
- TV - Commercials - American Express credit cards
- TV - Commercials - Chevrolet automobiles
- TV - Commercials - Digital security systems
- TV - Commercials - Enterprise Rent-a-Car car rental
- TV - Commercials - Isuzu trucks
- TV - Commercials - Kitchen Aid dishwashers
- TV - Commercials - MCI telephone service
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- TV - Commercials - Mercedes Benz automobiles
- TV - Commercials - Red Cross health care
- TV - Commercials - Sprint long distance
- TV - Commercials - Toyota automobiles
- TV - Commercials - UPS shipping service
- TV - Promos - "48 Hours"
- TV - Promos - "Murder She Wrote"
- TV - Promos - "People's Choice Awards"
- TV - Promos - "The George Wendt Show"
CREDITS
- Don Hewitt … Executive Producer
- Philip Scheffler … Senior Producer
- Radliffe, Harry A. II … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Lowell Bergman … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Gail Eisen … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Arthur Bloom … Director
- Allen Mack … Direction (Misc.), Associate Director
- Alicia Tanz Flaum … Direction (Misc.), Associate Director
- Mike Wallace … Reporter
- Ed Bradley … Reporter
- Lesley Stahl … Reporter
- Morley Safer … Reporter
- Steve Kroft … Reporter
- Andy Rooney … Reporter
- Henry Kissinger