The death and life of Asheboro, N.C.

Sugar Berry: Uh huh. (affirm)

Scott Pelley: It seems like the rest of the country.

Bobby and Sugar Berry: Yeah.

Scott Pelley: What's that last day gonna be like? You worked there nearly 30 years.

Sugar Berry: I just don't know. Some of those people, I'll probably never see again and we've been together all these years, raised our families together and cut up together and been mad at each other. And, you know, I don't know. I don't want it to come.

Not long ago their son Matt might've followed them into a plant. But instead he's at Randolph Community College learning high-tech manufacturing. Many of his classmates are in their 30s and 40s. Some of them can thank the government for recent increases in tuition assistance, and others in the county have survived on extended unemployment benefits. But with Election Day coming, many have lost patience with predictions of a recovery they don't quite see

Scott Pelley: When you see those ads, what do you think?

Bobby Berry: I just lost confidence in all of 'em to tell you the truth. I mean, you know. They'll make these promises around election time and then it seems like, you know, after it's over with, nothing. So, you know, I don't even know if I'll vote.

Scott Pelley: Sugar, what do you think?

Sugar Berry: It shouldn't be that we're trying to one-up either side. It should be that we're working together for the American people. And you have not seen that at all. Whoever's got something on the floor, the other's gonna do whatever they can do to veto it, or be against it instead of doing what's right for the American people.

Around Purgatory Mountain, jobs lost by the thousands are being reinvented by the hundreds. There is considerable doubt that another election will do very much about that. Folks around here believe that if there is to be a brighter tomorrow they'll have to build it themselves.

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[goldenmain]

This sure sounds familiar. I own a home in Fort Payne, Alabama and the same thing happened to this town sometime back around 2004. Fort Payne was known as the "Sock Capitol of the World!" president Bush #1 did this to this town with the free trade agreement. It ruined the place. All residents of this town were wiped out. It drove many to move away from thier homes. There is still no industry there now. It's a damn shame that all our factories and manufacturing have been sent over seas and now Americans are struggling to find work. The residents have told me that at one time? There were more jobs than people! How about that? That life is gone now. America has no industry for the average citizen anymore. If we want to rebuild our country? We need to bring all these jobs back home and only let US citizens have these jobs. So many illegals take manufaturing jobs away from us and then we have suffer while still for paying taxes. I don't see a future for our country anymore. The middle-aged that are have been out of work since 2008 are not wanting to go back to college just to get a job. What happened to life experience? We have have plenty of experience and that can't be taught in school.Besides that, it saves the govt from spending on grants and student loans that can't be paid back.

[joycline57]

I grew up in NC and have driven through Asheboro and Ramseur for over 30 years going between Charlotte and Raleigh first for college and now back to visit family. It isn't the governments fault that jobs have left. The issue is greed....corporate greed. When Cannon Mills opened in the early part of the last century thousands of people came down from the mountains to the piedmont for good jobs. They were hungry with mouths to feed and the Depression was hard on them all. Cannon took care of them, paid them a wage, provided schools, a hospital - Cabarrus Memorial Hospital, now NE Regional. I was born in that hospital as were generations. Cannon wasn't perfect but at least they provided the basic needs of the workers - even housing that still blankets Cabarrus, Rowan and Stanley counties. Randolph county and the rest of the state is no different. I miss the hard working, honest, patriotic people who raised my generation. We got our values from them. I'm not sure where the values that govern the country and NC came from but it wasn't the hard rock, church going people I remember and cherish in my heart. Thank you Scott for showing us there are still some of them left. Hang in there tarheels.....it will be better soon.

[CharlesKirtley]

What's going on in Asheboro is called the creative destruction of capitalism. The old is destroyed and replaced by the new. Granted it can be harsh, but the government shouldn't try to interfere with the process by propping up failing industries. Like the rust belt in the Midwest, Asheboro will slowly but surely come back to like.

[vbiersch]

It amazes me how everybody either wants to blame the president, or believes romney will be the savior.

But nobody wants to believe that romney has done more to destroy jobs over the last 30 years than anybody else.

We have 3 groups of people to blame for the offshoring of jobs and all three camps can be viewed in this article.

http://keepamericaatwork.com/?p=208188

[SocialWorker62]

The Republicans were the ones in the Congress and the Senate to block every initiative to help struggling companies and to tell Obama to let the auto industry go under. Remember, they have BLOCKED everything to make him look bad. The writing is on the wall. Millions of rational Americans are aware of this. You have to look past the idea of church and state, abortion, and all this emotional crap. You have real issues and it's the economy. Who are you going to blame if Obama is not there and Mitt messes up. Who you gonna call, "Mittbusters?"

[AshHomeGrl]

If the story was about Asheboro and Randolph County, I'm not getting the "pickle girl/Kernersville" insert.

As a home-girl, well-versed in how Asheboro's "leaders" treat their "workers", here's my reaction to the story:

http://www.drjshousecalls.blogspot.com/2012/10/60-minutes-comes-to-asheboro-i-probably.html

There's much more behind the "death" of this town than the loss of manufacturing jobs. At some point, our "leaders" sold their souls, and now EVERYONE (as opposed to just a few of us) is paying for it.

[GregG123456]

The only people that will find this report "poor reporting" is Obama supporters. Face it, in a few days we will have a new republican governor and president. Then we can start to put this country back on track.

[peaceandcharity]

This story was very poorly timed unless you are trying to elect Romney. As a previous loyal viewer I will now think twice before viewing your program again.

[J0sully1]

Forget the political aspects, I thought Pelley was practically rubbing those people's misfortunes in their faces, just trying to wrench cheap emotional reactions out of them. This crap never would have flown under Don Hewitt...

[J0sully1]

Forget the political aspects, I thought Pelley was practically rubbing those people's misfortunes in their faces, just trying to wrench cheap emotional reactions out of them. This crap never would have flown under Don Hewitt...

[daverplatt]

I am very disappointed to see a story about how slow the economy is recovering a week before the election, that made no effort to address why manufacturing job were lost or have been lost since 2008. It was clear that the implication was that this is the President's fault which to total ********.

I'm sorry these folk have lost jobs but it is not the President's fault. The President has done what the Republicans have allowed him to do. To focus this story on a swing state like North Carolina is wrong, unfair, and irresponsible. I will not watch your program again!

I thought you had higher standards than this. Totally Irresponsible!

[SocialWorker62]

You are absolutely right. As I said, the writing is on the wall. It's right in front of all of our face. Obama has run a glass house to keep the people informed; however, I think that people are so desperate and in need. But when desperate, it makes haste and making hasty decisions is dangerous. Don't complain when it doesn't work out.

[VA999X]

I feel the problem with the story was in was incomplete. It seem to imply that all of the job losses happened since 2008, but anyone from Randolph County knows they had been losing jobs since the late 1990's. It was implied that the bank went out of business, Pelley failed to mention that the bank relocated out on 64. A lot of people would like to blame President Obama for this economy but they need to STOP and review history as to when all of this started and it just came to a conclusion in 2007 and 2008. The big reason is that these company owners were given tax incentives to move jobs overseas and who does the tax code, our dear congressmen. It seems the rich are not hurting at all.