captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> pelley: the new manned space program rocket was supposed to be called "constellation." and now, you guys call it... >> "cancellation." >> unfortunately. >> pelley: they had been counting on a new space program in brevard county, florida, for years. but it didn't happen. >> and lift-off, the final lift- off of "atlantis." >> pelley: and after the last space shuttle mission touched down... >> this is a matter of national pride. >> pelley: ...things around the kennedy space center changed in a way that may surprise you. >> gupta: new research coming

out of some of america's most respected institutions is starting to find that sugar could be a driving force behind some of this country's leading killers. is sugar toxic? >> i believe it is. >> gupta: do you ever worry that that just sounds a little bit over the top? >> sure, all the time. but it's the truth. >> gupta: and it turns out sugar has become a major focus in cancer research, too. lewis cantley is looking at the connection. if you limit your sugar, you decrease your chances of developing cancer? >> absolutely. >> safer: almost 20 years ago, we broadcast one of the most controversial stories in our 44 years on the air. it was called, "yes, but is it art?" i was accused of being a philistine, someone lacking the aesthetic sensibility to appreciate these masterworks. tonight, as the art market goes through the roof, we take another look. >> how does the boom keep sustaining itself against all odds?

when we bring it up and begin to talk about it, we sort of drop the subject because it almost feels like you should just let it keep rolling. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm sanjay gupta. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." [ male announcer ] that. right there -- reminds you why you fell in love with her in the first place. and why you still feel the same. but your erectile dysfunction -- that could be a question of blood flow. cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis.

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>> announcer: crestor is not right for everyone. like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. simple blood tests will check for liver problems. tell your doctor about other medicines you're taking or if you have muscle pain or weakness. that could be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. >> is your cholesterol where your doctor wants? ask your doctor if crestor is right for you. >> announcer: if you can't afford your medication, astra zeneca may be able to help. >> pelley: president obama canceled nasa's plan to replace the space shuttle in favor of a more modest program, and then congress slashed the funding for that.

so, for the first time in 50 years, america is not the leader in space flight. fact is, we couldn't launch an astronaut today if we had to. with the end of an era, we wondered what would happen to the generation that put america in space. so last july, when the smoke cleared from the last space shuttle launch, we stayed behind in brevard county, florida, the home of the kennedy space center. what comes after reaching for the stars? for many in brevard county, the answer is a hard landing. there was nothing like it in the world. >> zero and liftoff-- the final liftoff of "atlantis." >> pelley: arguably, the greatest engineering achievement of man. at liftoff, it weighed four and a half million pounds; its top speed, 17,000 miles an hour. >> the space shuttle spreads its

wings one final time for the start of its sentimental journey into history. >> pelley: it was built by the hands of people like lou hanna. >> lou hanna: it was the experience and the job of a lifetime. i was working with pad one day with a friend of mine. and he's a crane operator, too. and i ask him, i said, "how many other crane operators do you suppose that there are doing what we're doing?" "there's two-- you and me." >> pelley: shuttle work wasn't just work. there was enormous pride in doing for america what no other workers in the world could even dare. lou hanna manned a gigantic crane that cleared the platform before launch. he worked on the first shuttle in 1981... >> america's first space shuttle.

>> pelley: ...and the last, 135 missions later. what did seeing the last shuttle launch mean to you? >> hanna: i felt anger. >> pelley: anger? >> hanna: oh, yeah. because this does not have to be the last launch. it doesn't have to end this way. i mean, it... it just doesn't make any sense. it doesn't compute. and i guess i'm still in denial because i'm thinking they're going to call me back one day. "we got a launch coming up. we need your help." how can they do that? >> pelley: they did it to save $3 billion a year. now, the only way an american can fly into space is to buy a seat on a russian rocket. at the kennedy space center, 7,000 workers lost their jobs. >> main gear touchdown. the space shuttle pulls into port for the last time.

>> pelley: 50 years of liftoffs are becoming eight months of layoffs. have a look around brevard county. it's shrinking. lots of people are moving away, taking businesses down with them. >> chris milner: it was like, bam, gone, gone, gone. >> pelley: the work ethic that built the shuttle keeps chris milner fighting to hang on. how long did you work at the space center? >> milner: eight years. >> pelley: and your wife? >> milner: 29 years. >> pelley: both laid off? >> milner: both laid off. >> pelley: in the spirit of an entrepreneur, milner planned for the layoffs. five years ago, he launched a landscape business on the side. and then, he added a sign shop in this industrial park. still, there was one thing he didn't plan on. >> milner: seafood-- it's gone. there's nothing there. edward's exterminating is the only one that's left. it's right around the corner. but basically, everything's empty. it's a nightmare. everybody that's been laid off, it's a ripple effect. businesses closing down, it affects everybody else and it

affects me. >> pelley: the 7,000 layoffs at the space center triggered 7,000 more in the community. unemployment has been close to 11%. >> milner: people are moving away. people are going in up north. nothing's happening here. i know people that move all the way to seattle for a job. left their house, left the key in the front door. "here you go." it's gone. >> pelley: milner had 12 employees in the lawn business. now, he has three. you know, you are running these two businesses. >> milner: yes. >> pelley: how many hours a day are you working? >> milner: literally? >> pelley: literally. >> milner: i'm here at 7:00 am in the morning. and you know, the last couple weeks, i've been here until 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. my last day off was christmas. >> pelley: working 17 hours a day, seven days a week can't be all that good for your health. >> milner: no. my wife's worried. she's scared. she's told me that. >> pelley: and she's taken out a

life insurance policy on him. >> milner: but at the same time, she knows what i got to do. and the problem is we have a 12- year-old at the house that doesn't understand, because he's never had to go without. he's constantly asking for mcdonald's. we don't get mcdonald's anymore. >> that's beautiful. >> pelley: this isn't the first hard landing on the space coast. there were big layoffs in 1972 after the last mission to the moon. but here's why today is worse. when we left the moon, nasa was already years into designing the shuttle. and it looked like it would be that way now, because president bush approved a program to follow the shuttle. the new manned space program rocket was supposed to be called "constellation." >> uh-huh. >> pelley: and now you guys call it... >> "cancellation." >> holly petrucci: unfortunately. lou hanna, and joe urich, holly petrucci, and mike carpenter planned to transfer from shuttle to "constellation." they were encouraged when candidate barak obama came to brevard county in 2008, three months before the election.

>> barak obama: i'm going to ensure that our space program doesn't suffer when the shuttle goes out of service by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired, because we can't afford to lose their expertise. >> mike carpenter: well, we were lied to when obama came through. gave us a lot of hope and, supposedly, a lot of change. well, i've got change in my pocket, but the hope is gone. >> pelley: in 2010, president obama cancelled "constellation" and turned over development of a new spaceship to private enterprise. then, congress dealt another blow by cutting the funding for the obama plan in half. at the very least, it will be five years before america flies astronauts again. now, the workers with that expertise mr. obama referred to are setting course for carole bess. >> carole bess: and i've had several who've told me, "i was considering suicide before i came to you."

>> pelley: carole bess is a bankruptcy attorney. what drove them to that point? >> bess: they felt like failures. you know, "here i am, i can't pay my debts. and i'm probably worth more dead than alive, if i have life insurance." >> pelley: and folks either aren't finding work, or if they do, they're making a lot less than they were before. >> bess: correct. and that's not going to change. these people have no hope. it could still get a lot worse, i think. >> pelley: following the great recession, we visited a lot of communities that lost their main employer, but never one like brevard county. we learned about the sense of loss with our first question to lucas maxwell, who used to handle the dangerous fuel for the rockets. what was it like when it was launched? paint that picture for me. >> lucas maxwell: awesome. i... >> pelley: the thought was too much for a moment. then, he came back to tell us why. >> maxwell: made your heart

stop. it's awesome, no matter what, you know, the pride that goes into a vehicle like that. but i knew it was the end, too. you know, i knew i was going to be out on the street. >> pelley: and space shuttle, for you, i have the sense was a statement about the country. >> hanna: oh, yeah, absolutely. this is a matter of national pride. >> pelley: the end of the shuttle is threatening businesses that families have built over decades, like shuttles, the first bar you come to leaving the space center. not just a bar, really-- it's the place where astronauts land. in july, before the last launch, we stopped in to the see owner bill grillo. how many employees did you have at the peak? >> bill grillo: we had 25. >> pelley: and now? >> grillo: we're down to eight. >> pelley: and you're one of them? >> grillo: yeah. if it comes down to just myself, my son, and the cook, we'll hang on. shuttles will be here. i won't let it go.

>> pelley: seven months later, this is shuttles today. i'm sorry about this. when we were here before, you were optimistic. you said this place wouldn't close. >> grillo: yeah. within 45 days after the last shuttle, we lost 70% of our business. we weren't able to sustain. as much as it... it killed me to do that, i had to. >> pelley: and you've been gone for a couple of months now, but i don't think you've moved a thing in here. >> grillo: i can't right now. it's... it's too painful to do that. i got a lot of... a lot of my heart is here and i can't take anything off the walls yet. >> pelley: it's not just a business. >> grillo: no. no. this is an institution. and i don't want to be the one that takes it apart.

>> pelley: no one we met back in july expected to be the one to take apart the life they'd known. some were the second or third generation in their family to work at the space center. before the last launch, we met several at a jobs center applying for the remaining aerospace work. sammy rivera worked on the shuttle 26 years, reviewing engineering drawings. >> sammy rivera: i figured the day i wake up dead, i won't go to work. that's the bottom line. there's not going to be anything for me to retire on. >> pelley: we caught up with him today. you didn't expect to be unemployed 11 months and counting. >> rivera: at the max, i figured three months. i've applied for engineering jobs, i've applied for technician jobs, i've applied for entry-level jobs. >> pelley: have you had any interviews? >> rivera: three. >> pelley: total of three? >> rivera: total of three. >> pelley: three interviews in 11 months? >> rivera: yes, sir.

>> pelley: do you have health insurance? >> rivera: no, sir. no, sir. my health insurance terminated on my last day of employment. >> pelley: how are you getting along? >> rivera: a lot of prayer. the medications that i was on, out-of-pocket expense runs me over $800 a month. with no money coming in, i can't afford that. >> pelley: so he's taking only one of the two pills that his doctors say he has to take to avoid a heart attack. you know, when you're raising that flag in your front yard... >> rivera: yes, sir. >> pelley: ...what are you thinking? >> rivera: this is my country, and i can't let it go down without a fight. >> pelley: the four remaining shuttles are headed to museums.

"atlantis" will be on display at the kennedy space center. she was designed for 100 missions, but flew only 33. like so many in brevard county florida, she was pulled from the service of her country long before she was ready. >> good evening. gas prices tonight average $3.92 a gallon nationwide, up 18 cents in a month and 29 cents more than a year ago. and the u.s. now has the highest corporate taxes in the industrialized world, 39.2% after japan today reduced its rate. i'm jeff glor, cbs news. [ male announcer ] at northern trust, we understand

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>> pelley: now, cnn's sanjay gupta on assignment for "60 minutes." >> gupta: the chances are good that sugar is a bigger part of your daily diet than you may realize, which is why our story tonight is so important. new research coming out of some of america's most respected institutions is starting to find that sugar, the way many people are eating it today, is a toxin, and could be a driving force behind some of this country's leading killers, including heart disease. as a result of these findings, an anti-sugar campaign has sprung up, led by dr. robert lustig, a california endocrinologist who believes the consumption of added sugars has plunged america into a public health crisis. is sugar toxic? >> dr. robert lustig: i believe it is. >> gupta: do you ever worry that that's... it just sounds a little bit over the top? >> lustig: sure, all the time. but it's the truth. >> gupta: dr. robert lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist at the university of california, san francisco, and a pioneer in what is becoming a war against sugar.

>> lustig: deep breaths. >> gupta: motivated by his own patients-- too many sick and obese children-- dr. lustig has concluded that sugar, more than any other substance, is to blame. what are all these various diseases that you say are linked to sugar? >> lustig: obesity, type ii diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease itself. >> gupta: lustig says the american lifestyle is killing us. and most of it, you say, is preventable? >> lustig: 75% of it is preventable. >> gupta: while dr. lustig has published a dozen scientific articles on the evils of sugar, it was his lecture on youtube, called "sugar: the bitter truth," that brought his message to the masses. >> lustig: i'm standing here today to recruit you in the war against bad food. >> gupta: by "bad food," dr. lustig means the obvious things such as table sugar, honey, syrup, sugary drinks, and desserts, but also just about

every processed food you can imagine, where sugar is often hidden-- yogurts and sauces, bread, even peanut butter. and what about the man-made, often vilified sweetener, high fructose corn syrup? is it worse than just table sugar? >> lustig: no, because it's the exact same. they are basically equivalent. the problem is they're both bad. they're both equally toxic. >> gupta: since the 1970s, sugar consumption has gone down nearly 40%, but high fructose corn syrup has more than made up the difference. dr. lustig says they are both toxic because they both contain fructose-- that's what makes them sweet and irresistible. >> lustig: we love it. we go out of our way to find it. i think one of the reasons evolutionarily is because there is no foodstuff on the planet that has fructose that is poisonous to you. it is all good. so, when you taste something that's sweet, it's an

evolutionary darwinian signal that this is a safe food. >> gupta: we were born this way? >> lustig: we were born this way. >> gupta: central to dr. lustig's theory is that we used to get our fructose mostly in small amounts of fruit, which came loaded with fiber that slows absorption and consumption. after all, who can eat ten oranges at a time? but as sugar and high fructose corn syrup became cheaper to refine and produce, we started gorging on them. americans now consume 130 pounds per person a year, that's a third of a pound every day. dr. lustig believes those sweeteners are helping fuel an increase in the most deadly disease in america, heart disease. for years, he's been a controversial voice. >> kimber stanhope: here is our oral isotope. >> gupta: but now, studies done by kimber stanhope, a nutritional biologist at the university of california, davis, are starting to back him up.

she's in the middle of a groundbreaking five-year study which has already shown strong evidence linking excess high fructose corn syrup consumption to an increase in risk factors for heart disease and stroke. that suggests calories from added sugars are different than calories from other foods. the mantra that you hear from most nutritionists is that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. >> dr. kimber stanhope: and i think the results of the study showed clearly that is not true. >> gupta: stanhope's conclusions weren't easy to come by. nutrition studies are expensive and difficult. stanhope has paid groups of research subjects to live in this hospital wing for weeks at a time under a sort of 24-hour lockdown. they undergo scans and blood tests, every calorie they ingest meticulously weighed and prepared. >> stanhope: they're never out of our sight. so we do know that they are consuming exactly what we need them to consume. >> gupta: and they're not sneaking any candy bars on the side.

>> stanhope: yeah, right, exactly. >> gupta: for the first few days, participants eat a diet low in added sugars, so baseline blood levels can be measured. >> so remember you guys have to finish all of your kool-aid. >> gupta: then, 25% of their calories are replaced with sweetened drinks, and stanhope's team starts drawing blood every 30 minutes around the clock. and those blood samples? they revealed something disturbing. and what are you starting to see? >> stanhope: we found that the subjects who consumed high fructose corn syrup had increased blood levels of l.d.l. cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. >> gupta: how quickly did these changes occur? >> stanhope: within two weeks. >> gupta: kimber stanhope's study suggests that when a person consumes too much sweet stuff, the liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts some of it into fat. some of that fat ends up in the bloodstream and helps generate a dangerous kind of cholesterol called small dense l.d.l. these particles are known to

lodge in blood vessels, form plaque, and are associated with heart attacks. did it surprise you when you first got these results back? >> stanhope: i would have to say i was surprised because, when i saw our data, i started drinking and eating a whole lot less sugar. ( laughter ) i would say our data surprised me. >> gupta: so, imagine, for these healthy young people, drinking a sweetened drink might be just as bad for their hearts as the fatty cheeseburgers we've all been warned about since the 1970s. that's when a government commission mandated that we lower fat consumption to try and reduce heart disease. >> ...major coronary risk factors. >> gupta: so, with the best of intentions, they say, "time to reduce fat in the american diet"? >> lustig: exactly. and we did. and guess what? heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and death are skyrocketing. >> gupta: dr. lustig believes that's primarily because we replaced a lot of that fat with added sugars. >> lustig: when you take the fat out of food, it tastes like

cardboard, and the food industry knew that. so they replaced it with sugar. >> gupta: this idea that sugar increases this particularly bad ldl, the small dense particles that are associated with heart disease, do... do most doctors, do they know this? >> lustig: no, they do not know this. this is new. >> gupta: and it turns out sugar has become a major focus in cancer research, too. lewis cantley is looking at the connection. if you limit your sugar, you decrease your chances of developing cancer. >> lewis cantley: absolutely. >> gupta: cantley, a harvard professor and the head of the beth israel deaconess cancer center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers. >> cantley: what we're beginning to learn is that insulin can cause adverse effects in the various tissues, and of particular concern is cancer. >> gupta: why? nearly a third of some common cancers, including breast and

colon cancers, have something called insulin receptors on their surface. insulin binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose. >> cantley: this is your body. >> gupta: every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. but the trouble is, these cancer cells also use it to grow. >> cantley: so, if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors on it, then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that's in the bloodstream. rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor, and the tumor uses it to grow. >> gupta: so you've just seen that tumor turn blue, which is essentially reflective of glucose going into it. >> cantley: that's right. >> gupta: so these cancers, much in the same way that muscle will say, "hey, i'd like some of that glucose," the fat says, "i would like some of that glucose," the cancers have learned how to do this themselves as well? >> cantley: yes. so they have evolved the ability to hijack that flow of glucose that's going by in the bloodstream into the tumor itself.

>> gupta: lewis cantley's research team is working on developing drugs that will cut off the glucose supply to cancer cells and keep them from growing. but until there's a breakthrough, cantley's advice? don't eat sugar. and if you must, keep it to a minimum. >> cantley: in fact, i... you know, i live my life that way. i rarely eat sugar. >> gupta: when you see a sugary drink or if i were to offer you one, what... with all that you know, what's going through your mind? >> cantley: i probably would turn it down and get a glass of water. ( laughs ) >> gupta: but for most of us, that's easier said than done. >> eric stice: it turns out sugar is much more addictive than i think we had sort of realized early on. >> gupta: eric stice, a neuroscientist at the oregon research institute, is using functional mri scanners to learn how our brains respond to sweetness. >> stice: sugar activates our brain in a special way that's very reminiscent of... of, you know, drugs like cocaine. >> gupta: that's right, cocaine. let's give it a shot.

i climbed into the mri scanner to see how my brain would respond. that's a straw that's been rigged to deliver a tiny sip of soda into my mouth. >> stice: stay as still as you can, okay? >> gupta: just as it hit my tongue, the scanner detected increased blood rushing to certain regions of my brain. in these images, the yellow areas show that my reward region is responding to the sweet taste. dopamine, a chemical that controls the brain's pleasure center, is being released, just as it would in response to drugs or alcohol. so dopamine is released. that sort of makes me feel good. i'm experiencing some pleasure from having this coke. >> stice: right, that euphoric effect. >> gupta: so, far be it for people to realize this, because sugar is everywhere, but you're saying this is one of the most addictive substances possibly that we have? >> stice: it certainly is very good at firing the reward regions in our brain. >> gupta: eric stice says, by scanning hundreds of volunteers, he's learned that people who

frequently drink sodas or eat ice cream or other sweet foods may be building up a tolerance, much like drug users do. as strange as it sounds, that means the more you eat, the less you feel the reward. the result-- you eat more than ever. >> stice: if you overeat these on a regular basis, it causes changes in the brain that basically it blunts your reward region response to the food, so then you eat more and more to achieve the same satisfaction you felt originally. >> gupta: with all this new science emerging, we wanted to hear from the sugar industry, so we visited jim simon, who's on the board of the sugar association, at a sugar cane farm in louisiana. would it surprise you that almost every scientist that we talked to in... in researching this story told us they are eliminating all added sugars, they're getting rid of it because they're concerned about the health impacts? >> jim simon: to say that the

american consuming public is going to completely omit, eliminate sweeteners out of their diet, i don't think gets us there. >> gupta: simon cautions that eliminating sugar wrongly vilifies one food, rather than working towards the long-term solution of reducing calories and exercising. you know, a lot of people, jim, are saying that sugar is different. that it is bad for your heart and is causing a lot of the problems we're talking about. it is addictive and, in some cases, might even fuel cancers. what would you... i mean, you've looked at this. you must have looked at some of these studies. what... what do you say about that? >> simon: the science is not completely clear here. >> gupta: but some of that's... but some of these studies exist. i mean, what... what is a consumer... what are they to make of all that? >> simon: well, i would say to them that they've got to approach their diet in balance. >> gupta: dr. robert lustig agrees-- we need a balanced diet, but his idea of balance is a drastic reduction in sugar consumption. to that end, he co-authored an american heart association report recommending men should

consume no more than 150 calories of added sugars a day. and women, just 100 calories. that's less than the amount in just one can of soda. >> lustig: ultimately, this is a public health crisis. and when it's a public health crisis, you have to do big things and you have to do them across the board. tobacco and alcohol are perfect examples. we have made a conscious choice that we're not going to get rid of them, but we are going to limit their consumption. i think sugar belongs in this exact same wastebasket. >> go to 60minutesovertime.com for dr. sanjay gupta's take on how to find the hidden sugars in the american family diet. sponsored by pfizer. on golf's biggest stages.to win but when joint pain and stiffness from psoriatic arthritis hit, even the smallest things became difficult. i finally understood what serious joint pain is like. i talked to my rheumatologist and he prescribed enbrel. enbrel can help relieve pain, stiffness,

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>> safer: almost 20 years ago, we broadcast one of the most controversial stories in our 44 years on the air. it was called "yes, but is it art?" i was accused of being a philistine, someone lacking the aesthetic sensibility to appreciate the challenging nature of some contemporary art- - art like jeff koons' floating basketballs or another artist's

dripping faucet. in those 20 years, works that i questioned, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, are now worth hundreds of millions. in fact, contemporary art has become a global commodity, just like oil or soybeans or pork bellies, and there seems to be no shortage of people wanting to speculate in it, and no shortage of billionaires willing to invest in it as a haven for their cash, or love of art, or as a status symbol. and to feed those beasts, there are now art fairs virtually every weekend round the globe. and in contemporary art, none are more important than the one we went to in december. to miami beach, once a mere escape from the winter blues-- now, one of the great contemporary art capitals of the world. the region hosts at least 30 art fairs annually, the most important of which is art basel.

in miami, the executive jets arrive by the swarm, more even than flit in for the super bowl. 50,000 people turn up, dressed up and dressed down. you can't tell the billionaires from the wannabes, the gawkers from the gawked-at, the exhibitionists from the exhibitions. they come to celebrate the bonanza that contemporary art has become. the art market sizzles while the stock market fizzles. this is where big disposable income comes to be disposed. >> they're going to invite us to head inside to say hello. >> safer: inside, you will find an upscale flea market, a shopping mall where prices start at the thousands and end in the stratosphere. there is very little sense of an aesthetic experience here, not the silence or even the suppressed hush of a gallery or museum. what you hear, or imagine you

hear, is the cacophony of cash. >> this is $750,000... >> safer: this fair seems to be about art as stuff, or stuff as art, just so much merchandise, without a price tag in sight. there are some timeless gems maintaining a quiet elegance, but they're shouted off the walls by the kitsch, the cute, the clumsy, and the incomprehensible, from oversized headwear... ♪ ♪ to art as performance... and of course video art, an artist in the agonizing throes of creation. and then there's the question you've been dying to ask-- how much is this stuff worth? rather, how much does it cost? >> dennis scholl: there's a price for you, and there's a price for me, and there's a price for somebody else. >> safer: dennis scholl and his wife debra are longtime collectors, familiar with the unwritten rules of the art bazaar.

>> dennis scholl: it's really what a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller in the art world. so, when you go and look at a piece of art, you know, the price is what you negotiate. there's no fixed price, per se. and prices move up and prices move down very quickly in the art world, particularly with young artists. >> safer: and have you made some mistakes, or have they all been pretty...? >> dennis scholl: well, we've bought a thousand pieces of art in my life, so we've made plenty, plenty of mistakes in my life. i mean, we have, yes. and you know what you do? you just bury them in the backyard and forget about them. >> safer: 265 dealers are invited, and they're willing to spend up to $150,000 for the privilege of showing their wares. am i, are we, such philistine slobs that we wonder about the value of some of this? is this art that dazzles the eye or makes us think? do baby blue translucent bathroom fixtures prick the imagination? does that toilet seat raise our spirits, or is it directing us

to the men's room? or is this the biggest scam since hans christian anderson trotted out the emperor's new clothes. one thing's for sure-- it's no joke. look at this graph. contemporary art sales last year totaled about $5.5 billion, and that only includes auction prices. private sales like these art fairs could be worth billions more. recession? what recession? >> good deal. >> perfect. >> cool. great. i'll bill you. >> tim blum: the real fundamental thing is, we're here to sell a lot of art. >> safer: tim blum, a partner in blum & poe, a los angles gallery renowned for discovering the sharpest of cutting edge art. some of the art that you sell could probably be described as "difficult"? >> blum: oh, absolutely. 100%. i mean, we kind of specialize in that. >> safer: you have to explain to a potential buyer...

>> blum: yes. >> safer: ...why he or she might learn to love this. >> blum: yeah, often you do. a lot of folks are just buying. it's more like, "we need one of these things because everybody's getting one." >> safer: status. >> blum: it's a status symbol. it's a speculative mechanism. >> safer: do you sometimes have to grit your teeth, even when you're making a sale? >> blum: yeah. i mean, we're very good at that. we're from hollywood. we're in the acting game. yeah. it's theater. this is all theater. >> safer: and blum knows all the a-list collectors. >> blum: there's people that are collecting art in a very beautiful, organic, autobiographical way, where... where the art is a part of their lifeline. and then, there's the pure speculators. and then, there's the people that just have so much money, and the art is the next... is the next thing on the queue. >> safer: you're appealing to the 1%, as opposed to the 99%, correct? >> blum: 1%, and/or .00000001%.

>> eli broad: we just bought that, just now, in the last few minutes. >> safer: eli broad, the one- percenter of one-percenters, the collector of thousands of art works, builder of his own museum. he's giddy with the thrill of having beaten the pack to a drawing by kara walker, a truly gifted young american artist. collectors like mr. broad get first dibs on the really good stuff. he moved on to pick up photographs by cindy sherman. he was one of her first collectors. >> broad: i love cindy and love her work. >> safer: he has good reason to love cindy. he first bought her pictures back in 1982 for $250. today, they go for nearly $4 million. all of her subject matter is herself in various guises. her current retrospective at new york's museum of modern art gives her work even more value. what are you looking for?

for dealers, the gold standard is selling to a major museum. so when jennifer stockman, on the right, president of the board of the guggenheim foundation, along with a senior curator, alexandra munroe, turns up, the waters part. >> alexandra munroe: if you go into this concave... >> jennifer stockman: let's walk in. >> safer: they, along with the dealer barbara gladstone, went ape over this sculpture by anish kapoor. >> barbara gladstone: before it's like... >> stockman: and then you also don't know... >> munroe: and you have no idea of depth. >> stockman: i mean, it's very strange. >> safer: we moved on to an installation by haegue yang, a korean artist-- this tangle of extension cords. asking price: $33,000. >> munroe: we already are very committed to this artist, so i'm really excited to come and see new work by haegue. she is a perfect example of a contemporary peripatetic global artist. i always find some sadness in your work. something's unstable, something's unfinished.

something's, like, never complete. it's always in the process. and i think that's sort of how we live today. >> safer: art-speak-- the descriptive language of contemporary art can seem as opaque as spilled alphabet soup. >> jeffrey deitch: and the art fair gives you a very good context for this. >> safer: but a language fully understood by jeffrey deitch, former dealer, now director of the los angeles museum of contemporary art. he could not resist reminding us of our report of 1993 and who had the last laugh. >> deitch: in the art world, we remember very well that famous program that you did 20 years ago where you... it was almost a send-up of the contemporary art market. >> safer: we had a little bit of fun with it. >> deitch: but i think, in terms of market value, i think the time that we were talking jeff koons was very well-sold at $250,000. and as you know now, jeff koons' works have gone for $25 million

and more. >> safer: and nearby, arguably the most powerful dealer in the art world, the famously reticent larry gagosian, owner of 11 galleries round the world. he reluctantly graced us with a few words of wisdom. at least say hello. >> larry gagosian: hey, morley. you always look so dapper. i love that. >> safer: this place has become one of the places that someone like yourself have to show at? >> gagosian: yeah, for me, it's a place to sell art and it's a place to make money. the art fair has become a huge part of our business. >> safer: how have china and russia changed the art market? >> gagosian: it's been a huge factor. i think the wealth in russia, the middle east, asia has changed it, changed it dramatically. >> safer: just how dramatically can be seen in this graph. in orange is the contemporary art market's performance

compared to the grey, which is the s&p stock index. much of that dramatic rise is a result of those new billionaires from china and russia parking their money in art. >> maria baibakova: you have to tell me a little more about this richter. >> safer: maria baibakova, age 26, is interested in this dealer's gerhard richter, a german artist who is the current rage. >> baibakova: it's got a lot of wall power. >> safer: she's a russian oligarch's daughter who's spending a fortune on contemporary art. >> and my painting, i'm selling it for $4.8 million, and so you're getting a bargain with me today. >> baibakova: that's a real bargain. >> i think so. >> safer: certainly a bargain if you're daddy's a billionaire and you're playing in a market where the rule is there are no rules. >> blum: it's the wild west. this is not a normal retail business. it's an unregulated, utterly bizarre place to conduct business. >> safer: the competition is

great, yes? >> blum: yeah, it's literally a multi-billion-dollar economy, the art world. so, the way the business is run, and the competition between dealers, between artists, is often vicious. >> safer: this is where the art trade's carefully constructed mask of olympian high culture begins to crack, and the underside of a booming, cutthroat commodities market is revealed, one without regulation or oversight, in which price fixing and control of supply to maintain demand is both legal and commonplace. >> blum: how does this boom keep sustaining itself against all odds? it's inexplicable. i mean, it really is almost unexplainable. and we don't even... when we bring it up and want to begin to talk about it, we sort of drop the subject, because it... it almost feels like you should just let it... let it keep rolling. >> safer: because it's going against what's happening... >> blum: yeah, absolutely. >> safer: ...elsewhere in the economy. >> blum: 100%.

>> safer: meanwhile, the prices rise and the band plays on and all's well in this wonderful world. if the music stops, and the bubble bursts, no big deal-- the collectors are bubble-proof. it's only their mad money they're spending, anyway. they'll still have the pleasure of their art, easier to look at than pork bellies... or maybe not. >> welcome to the cbs sports update. i'm greg gumbel in new orleans where it will be kansas against kentucky, tipping at 9:23 eastern time in tomorrow night's ncaa national championship game. both teams worked out today at the superdome. all players are healthy. the jayhawks are making their ninth appearance in the title game, having won three. the wildcats have been here 11 time, winning seven. the two teams won earlier this year with kentucky winning 75-65. for more sports news and information go, to

cbssports.com.

>> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes," and i'll see you tomorrow on the "cbs evening news." employee: (to peanuts crew) exciting times here at metlife. we've made buying term life insurance super simple. check this out. life insurance online in one convenient session. puts you in control.

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