>> i'm lara logan. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer.

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and the active ingredient relieves your cough. i watched on television a ten day, six hundred mile race, and i thought, wow. i really want to do that. unfortunately, the reality was that i weighed almost four hundred pounds. for a couple years i just really lost the weight and got in shape. as we were heading towards the finish line, linda starts crying, my friend. and i said, why are you crying?' and she said, well, you just accomplished your goal! wow, i can do anything that i want to do, just looking back on that moment. mutual of omaha. insure your possibilities. insurance. retirement. banking. investments.

>> pitts: one of the leading causes of death for american military forces right now is suicide. in 2012, 349 active members of the armed forces took their own lives. that's more than the number that died in combat. when you add the suicides among veterans, the numbers are staggering. the v.a. estimates as many as 22 veterans a day die by their own hands. 22 each day! this is the story of one-- clay hunt from houston, texas, a marine veteran who served in iraq and afghanistan. after four years of a downward spiral, he took his own life in 2011. you'll see him in videos during some of his best times, and hear him talk about some of his worst. hunt loved being a marine and serving his country, and though he had been out of the corps for two years when he died, clay hunt was a casualty of war. this is clay hunt about a year before he killed himself.

at 27, he thought he could make the world a better place. >> tell me who you are? >> clay hunt: my name is clay hunt. i'm here because i'm needed here. >> pitts: when a massive earthquake struck haiti in january, 2010, hunt, a marine combat veteran, went back into action as a humanitarian. >> hunt: i was there to do a job, to help people, and that was such a great feeling, being able to actually get to work and help people and do good things, and to not have to worry about getting shot at. >> pitts: what clay hunt didn't say in this video is that, by helping others, he was hoping to heal himself from the traumas of war. hunt earned a purple heart when he was wounded in iraq. a year later, he deployed to afghanistan. on both tours, he fought alongside jake wood. >> jake wood: we became as close as friends can get. >> pitts: like brothers? >> wood: absolutely. >> how do you know jake? >> hunt: he was best man at my wedding. he's my best friend for the last few years. he's the guy i asked to go get me a beer about ten minutes

after i got shot, and he just laughed at me. but he's my brother. i'd... i'd die for him. >> pitts: he had so much going on for him. so, how could it happen to someone like clay hunt? >> wood: i don't know. i don't know. clay had the world at his fingertips. clay could've done anything he wanted. he was smart. he was good-looking, charismatic. the ladies loved him. he was the all-american kid. >> pitts: in early 2007, clay hunt and jake wood deployed to iraq, outside fallujah. hunt later said, "that's when it all started. my life was changed forever." only a month into their tour, hunt's bunkmate, blake howey, was killed by an i.e.d. three weeks later, another friend, nathan windsor, was shot in an ambush. hunt was driving the platoon's humvee a few yards away, under orders to stay put. >> wood: clay had to witness everything through a bulletproof windshield. he had to sit back and watch. and that was his job and he did it.

but it was, i think for him, a very... it was a feeling of helplessness. >> susan selke: he would tell me, he said, "mom, that plays in my mind like a video over and over, and it won't stop." >> pitts: susan selke and stacy hunt are clay's parents. from 6,000 miles away, they could sense the guilt and grief wash over him. >> selke: he knew in his head there was nothing else that he could have done, and he knew no one could have done anything more. but in his heart, it just... it just tore him apart. just tore him apart. >> stacy hunt: it definitely changed him and... and in a way that we will never know how deeply it changed him. >> pitts: three days after windsor's death, hunt's platoon held a memorial service before heading out on patrol. hours later, a sniper shot hunt through the wrist, sending him back to his base in california. but being separated from his unit did more damage than the bullet and added to his helplessness.

>> wood: just like when he was in that humvee during nathan's ambush, and he couldn't do anything. now, he's at home, and that's... that's maddening. >> pitts: maddening because? >> wood: you'd like to think that you have some control over the safety and well-being of your brothers. if you get sent home, you have no control. >> pitts: before long, clay hunt was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, ptsd. despite being placed on medication, he struggled with depression, panic attacks, and sleeplessness. >> wood: it marked him. and i think he saw it as marking him as weak, not being able to handle it. >> pitts: did guys treat him differently once they knew? >> wood: no. i don't think so. i don't think so. he... but he felt like they did and... >> pitts: i mean, there's no shame in that, right? >> wood: depends on who you ask and when. you know, ask... ask a marine rifleman if there's shame in having p.t.s.d. just coming back

from a chest-thumping deployment to iraq, and he'll tell you, "you shouldn't have p.t.s.d. that's what we do." >> pitts: despite his injury and p.t.s.d., hunt followed jake wood into an elite sniper unit and deployed to afghanistan. and that's when he started having doubts about the war. >> wood: the rest of us refused to look at the larger picture of the war that we were fighting in afghanistan. and clay refused to allow himself not to look at it. he saw our friends continuing to die and get maimed. and, you know, we would go out on these missions, and we'd get in firefights where we'd kill people. and he had to justify that. and when those doubts start to creep in your mind, that's when you... that's when you start to lose your mind. and that's what started to happen with clay. >> pitts: hunt and wood lost two more friends in afghanistan. when he left the marine corps in 2009, hunt was disillusioned by war and disappointed by what he found at home. >> stacy hunt: he was saddened

by the fact that americans didn't seem to be impacted by what was going on in the world. that we lived kind of in a bubble. >> selke: he said, "you know, the marines are at war and america's at the mall." and it was... it was just the... the realization of the disconnect. >> pitts: jake wood also felt that disconnect. he was fresh out of the marine corps when the earthquake struck haiti in 2010. wood decided, spur of the moment, to lead a handful of veterans, including hunt, on a relief mission. a month later, they responded to another quake in chile. >> hunt: we found a need and we're bridging the gap. >> pitts: that was the beginning of team rubicon, an organization that helps veterans get back into civilian life by using their military skills in disaster relief. what did team rubicon, what did the experience in haiti give clay? >> wood: i think clay found that sense of purpose, that identity that he wanted in the marine corps. he was helping put people's lives back together. >> pitts: at the same time, clay

hunt was struggling to put his life on track. his year-old marriage was failing. divorce followed. he changed medications, looking for something that relieved his depression and anxiety without debilitating side effects. still, hunt wanted to help others. when he was at loyola marymount university, he agreed to talk about his problems publicly in this mtv college network video about depression. >> hunt: so, i'm almost ten years older than most of my classmates, and so that makes it a little hard to relate to a lot of people, just because i have a whole lot of different life experiences than most 40-year- olds. you know, i've done, seen things in my life that, for one, most people should never have to see. >> pitts: at the west los angeles v.a., hunt sought counseling off and on. but life became more difficult as v.a. delays in processing his benefits put hunt under financial stress along with his depression. >> selke: he's wracking up

credit card debt to try to cover things until that starts coming in. it's... it's a very... >> pitts: that must have frustrated him. >> selke: it was very frustrating. >> pitts: hunt found an outlet for his frustration riding a bicycle, and through the v.a., he met pro cyclist john wordin. when hunt's depression hit a new low in the fall of 2010, he dropped out of college. that's when wordin took hunt in to live with him and his family. >> john wordin: he was the darkest of the dark. you could look in his eyes and you could see that hopelessness. >> pitts: could he ever articulate what it was exactly? >> wordin: he would always say, "you know what, john? i don't feel like being here anymore." >> pitts: meaning? >> wordin: he should've been killed in iraq with his buddies. all you guys in the back, you got to come forward! >> pitts: wordin has worked with people like clay hunt since 2007, when he started an organization called ride 2 recovery. >> wordin: here we go, baby! >> pitts: he organizes bike rides around the country for active-duty military and veterans with psychological and physical wounds. the rides offer camaraderie and

a chance to relate to others damaged by war. and the strenuous activity leads to something most are missing, sleep. last october, 200 rode from san francisco to los angeles. what happens on those rides? >> wordin: it's magic. something happens, they get so physically tired that they let their guard down. and all of a sudden, it comes gushing out. and it's all different. >> pitts: they're not alone. >> wordin: not only are they not alone, but they find that they have a way to overcome it. >> pitts: what was clay like on the rides? >> wordin: he was great. i mean, he really enjoyed riding. that's what makes it so frustrating with how the end came, because, like, he was always looking forward to the next ride. and then all of a sudden, no. >> pitts: hunt told john wordin he'd be on the ride to recovery in texas in march, 2011. he had moved back to houston, had a new job, a new truck, a new girlfriend, but was still haunted by what he had seen and done in war.

on march 31, clay hunt sat alone in his apartment and shot himself through the head. he was 28 years old. >> stacy hunt: you never dream that a child will... will commit suicide. you never... you just can't imagine things getting that bad, you know? >> selke: if you don't have depression and anxiety under control, it's... it is like a cancer. it will just... it'll take you down. >> pitts: and with his suicide, the pain and survivor's guilt that plagued clay hunt spread to those who knew and loved him. who do you blame? do you blame anybody? >> stacy hunt: i blame myself, you know, for not, you know, seeing the deadly mixture of his depression and his p.t.s.d., and for not reacting strongly enough. >> wood: i can't pretend to know what it was that was particular about clay that made him take his own life.

>> pitts: how often do you ask yourself that question? >> wood: every day. you know, it... it'll come to you at any hour. and you wonder, "what was it? what made clay's experience and... and return home different from mine? what made it, you know, different from any other... any of the other marines we served with?" and if i had known that, what could i have done differently? >> pitts: it sounds like you have your own measure of survivor's guilt. >> wood: of course. do i blame myself occasionally for clay's death? absolutely. >> pitts: why? >> wood: i was clay's partner in sniper school, and if there's one thing that you learn is that you never, under any circumstance, let your partner down. >> pitts: but clay didn't kill himself in sniper school. he didn't kill himself in afghanistan or iraq. he killed himself in his apartment in houston, texas. >> wood: that brotherhood doesn't stop, doesn't end. doesn't end when we take off the uniform, doesn't end when we come home. doesn't end 60 years from now.

i knew clay was struggling. i knew he would... had been suicidal. and i... you know, i didn't... there was more i could've done, and i owed it to him to do it, and i didn't. >> pitts: you ever get angry with him about it? >> wood: yeah, i cuss him out all the time. i mean, the fact that i had to come in here and do a "60 minutes" interview, and revisit all these things, i cursed him on the drive over here. i'll curse him on the drive home. >> pitts: you blame him some? >> wood: unfortunately, yes, i do. you know, i'm having a wedding in six months, and there's a groomsman's spot that's not going to be filled. you know, it's like... of course i'm angry. >> pitts: i'm struck by how everyone who was close to clay, that each of you blame yourselves. >> wordin: you feel like you let him down.

you know, he counted on me as a guy that he knew he could count on. he could call me anytime, anywhere. he knew he was always welcome. and it's not enough. and you struggle with that. >> pitts: how many clays have you met? >> wordin: he's the only one that ever went the final step. but guys that are like that? hundreds. over the five years i've been doing that, hundreds. >> hunt: we're veterans. we fought for our country and we've done what i think are great things. yeah, they can be horrible things, but that's war and that's the way war's always been. but we're doing good things for our country, and i think we deserve a lot better coming home as veterans. ♪

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>> stahl: no one symbolizes china's rapid 30-year rise from the backwaters of communism to the second largest economy in the world better than real estate developer zhang xin. what's interesting about her is that while we think of china as being uncreative, repressive, and as far as you can get from the american dream, she breaks every one of those stereotypes. she's a mogul who got her start not in china, but on wall street. but she missed the great wall, so she went back home, and made it big.

the mogul, zhang xin, is the fifth richest self-made billionaire woman in the world. >> zhang xin: this is us, the one outside, that one is us. >> stahl: she's pointing out her buildings. with her partner husband, she has built more of beijing than almost any emperor in china's history. how many buildings have you and your husband built? >> xin: oh, a lot. >> stahl: you can't even count them, right? >> xin: yeah. >> stahl: wherever you look, you see the company logo, soho china, on one cutting-edge skyscraper after the next. as a developer, xin pays special attention to design, which is why she's been called the steve jobs of the architecture world. her buildings are fluid and futuristic and daring, and would be at home in new york or london, an expression of china's emergence into the modern world. i'm wondering, when you see these buildings, if it ever strikes you, you are designing beijing. it's a huge responsibility. >> xin: i feel that.

i really feel that. >> stahl: do you feel it on your shoulders? >> xin: i feel that. i feel these buildings are forming the face of our city. >> stahl: and you build huge buildings and huge projects. >> xin: that's china, you know? china-- if you think about what is the character of china, it's enormous scale. it's bigness. everything. >> stahl: she took us to the site of her newest project... do you love to come out? >> xin: i love coming out here. >> stahl: ...that's so huge, it's swarming with thousands of workers. these kinds of projects are one reason for china's explosive economic growth. recently, though, there've been fears of overbuilding and a real estate bubble. xin told us that's why she keeps her focus narrow-- only office buildings, and only in beijing and shanghai. >> xin: my own view is that residential property development in china has really come into an end. >> stahl: you don't feel there's any threat of a bursting bubble

in commercial real estate in beijing and shanghai? >> xin: i think in retail, like shops, shopping malls, there is oversupply. but office is doing... is the only property sector that's doing well. >> stahl: even though the future may be uncertain? >> xin: the future may be uncertain in terms of... well, the future is always uncertain wherever you go. >> stahl: but more uncertain now. >> xin: even if the certainty is not 10% growth for china, it goes down to 7% growth, it's still a better place to put your money... >> stahl: ...than anywhere else. ( laughter ) you think? >> xin: i think so. >> stahl: you have that much faith? >> xin: mm-hmm. that's why we're investing heavily. >> stahl: her business instincts are usually right. they've made her enormously wealthy and a celebrity here. when she opens a new building, it can look like a hollywood premiere. yet, at 47, she remains grounded and unpretentious, never forgetting she grew up wretchedly poor.

she says her personal story shows that china is the new land of opportunity. >> xin: china is the place that produced more self-made billionaires than any other country in the world. >> stahl: do you know what the american dream is? >> xin: mm-hmm. >> stahl: it sounds like the american dream, doesn't it? >> xin: mm-hmm. very much so. >> stahl: how times have changed! xin was born during the cultural revolution, when mao zedong brutally purged all the capitalists and intellectuals, whom he derided as "running dogs." and if you were educated, you were almost crushed? >> xin: mm-hmm. my parents were university graduates. >> stahl: oh, boy. they were in trouble. >> xin: they were sent to the countryside. i spent years in the countryside as part of the re-education camp. >> stahl: but call it the revenge of the running dogs. their children are today the country's leading capitalists. for xin, it goes back to when she was eight.

her mother was allowed to return to beijing, where she found work as a translator. but they were destitute and homeless, forced to sleep in an office. >> xin: i remember we would sleep on her desk. we will use her dictionaries, because my mother was a translator, as the pillow. >> stahl: you slept on the desktop, dictionary as your pillow? >> xin: pillow. >> stahl: oh, my goodness. >> xin: yeah, for months, we did that. >> stahl: when xin was 14, she moved to hong kong in search of work, but life there was just as hard. she was forced to slave away on assembly lines as a sweatshop girl. >> xin: on my table, there are like five different chips you need to put on the board-- boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. then, you put on... put on the belt. and then the belt goes down to the next one. so we all become like a machine doing that. >> stahl: so, this is how you spent your teenage years? >> xin: mm-hmm. five years doing that. >> stahl: five years? so, do you look upon that as lost years? >> xin: no, i look at those as a

different chapter in life. i knew that's not a life i wanted to have. >> stahl: did you have a dream? >> xin: no. i wanted to just escape. >> stahl: so when she had saved enough money, she bought a one- way ticket to london, packed up her bags, and left. >> xin: i thought i'd need to cook for myself, so i carried a wok, a chinese wok, you know. >> stahl: in your suitcase? >> xin: yeah. >> stahl: but forget chinese food. with no money, she ended up working in a fish and chips stand. her dickensian journey wasn't over. >> xin: i think i was very afraid in england only because i had never seen so many caucasians. >> stahl: funny looking people. >> xin: funny looking... language i didn't understand, nothing familiar. >> stahl: you didn't know anybody? >> xin: didn't know anybody. i sat on my suitcase, started crying. >> stahl: you end up-- no one's going to believe this-- you end up working at goldman sachs! what a tale! from crying and alone to school to learn english, which led to a scholarship to the university of

sussex, and then a masters in economics from cambridge! it was 1992, and xin's timing was perfect. china was opening its markets to foreign investors. goldman sachs sent the sweatshop girl to the mainland to look for opportunities. but she was unhappy in the world of investment banking. i'll give you some of the quotes that you've said. "people spoke crassly, treated others badly, looked down on the poor and adored the rich." those are your quotes. >> xin: that's pretty much true. i think investment banking environment was very competitive and cutthroat. i was always looking for opportunities to leave. >> stahl: you wanted to come back to china. >> xin: i think i was just missing the idealism that i was naively brought up with in the communist socialist china, when everyone was encouraged and brought up to be idealist. and i guess i was missing what i was brought up with. >> stahl: that's when she met

the man she would marry, pan shiyi. he was part of a wave of young idealists, committed to liberalizing china through business-- in his case through a new industry, real estate. >> xin: and i remember he took me to see a construction site. it was evening, it was late at night. he took me, he said, "you have to come and see what i do." and i went, "wow." i had never seen a hole that big on earth. and he told me, "this is a place will be the manhattan of beijing." and i laughed. ( laughter ) i thought, because he hasn't been to manhattan. he has no idea what manhattan means, right? the whole bunch of factories in the area, big hole on the ground. this is not going to be a manhattan of beijing. this is where we are now. all this area used to be factories. >> stahl: we stood at that spot,

in a sea of offices they built-- it's not manhattan, it's bigger! building after building, some projects the size of entire neighborhoods, and all built in the last 19 years, going back to the night xin and pan first met. did you really decide to get married in four days? >> xin: yeah, we did. and i left my bank and we joined together, formed the company with no money, no backing. we're... no relationship. none of us is the sons or the daughters of anybody in china... >> stahl: he wasn't a princeling. >> xin: no. no, in fact, just the opposite. he came from one of the poorest provinces in china, the most impoverished place. >> stahl: but she and pan were finding out that mixing how east and west did business was not easy. they fought constantly. and so, one day, she packed her bags and went back to england. but then, she changed her mind. >> xin: i thought i just cannot give up like this. i called him up. i said, "you know what? i decided to stay in china.

stay in this marriage, i'll quit the job. i will step aside, i stay at home." >> stahl: in her time off, she got pregnant with the first of their two sons, while pan was making a success of the company. >> xin: he did so well that there was too much work. he couldn't handle. so then he said, "you better come back to work. really, i need you to work." >> stahl: oh, my goodness. >> xin: everything changed from fighting, wanted to get divorced to starting a family with a baby, and the business is going well, and i'm back to work. >> stahl: now, they split their duties-- he focuses on everything inside china; she uses her wall street know-how to raise money abroad, and hires the world's top architects. together, they have built soho china into a company with $10 billion in assets. what about corruption, though? >> xin: corruption is everywhere in china. it's really quite widespread.

pretty much whoever has power is in the position to be corrupt. >> stahl: so they expect you to pay them off. >> xin: to pay them off. >> stahl: so, how do you operate in this environment? >> xin: for instance, if we buy a piece of land, if we buy it in auction, then that's very transparent. >> stahl: openness. >> xin: openness, yeah. the more openness it is, the better it is. we don't need to know anybody, we don't need to be the daughters and sons of anybody, we can just buy with money on an open market. that building will stay, and the rest is all landscape. >> stahl: she believes that open market tools like public auctions and transparent accounting will lessen the corruption and the cronyism. the woman who once slept on a dictionary, and now has about $3 billion in her bank account, may tout china as the new land of opportunity, but she knows it's still not the land of the free. >> xin: you know, i hear a lot in the u.s.

people praise, wall street people praise state capitalism in china-- "look at how efficient things get done. decisions get made so quick and so effective. it can roll over a policy overnight nationwide. and here in the u.s., we need to go through congress, senate, and debate." and you know, i have to say, for a chinese living in china, chinese... if you ask one thing everyone craves for is what? it's not food, it's not homes. everyone crave for democracy. i know there's a lot of negativities in the u.s. about the political system, but don't forget-- you know, 8,000 miles away, people in china are looking at it, longing for it. >> stahl: do you think there will be democracy here-- let's say, i'll put a time frame on it-- in 20 years? >> xin: sooner. >> stahl: you're an optimist. >> xin: i am.

>> stahl: a bold statement in a country with heavy government censorship and limited freedom of speech. and while she's thriving, china's residential real estate is in trouble. that part of the story, when we return. >> welcome to the cbs sports update i'm greg gumbel. michigan wins over michigan state. purdue handed wisconsin a rare home loss. carolina blows out florida state for a fifth straight win inch top-ten action this weekend, top-ranked indiana rolls over iowa. number two gonzaga has won 12 in a row. ryan kelly returned and scored 36 for duke. kansas remains tied with kansas state for the big 12 lead. georgetown makes it 1 11 in a re. re. information, cbssports.com.

time.

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>> stahl: if trouble comes in threes, then what'll be the next global market to melt down after the u.s. and europe? some are looking nervously at china. china has been nothing short of a financial miracle. in just 30 years, this state- controlled economy became the world's second largest, deftly managed by government policies and decrees. one sector the authorities concentrated on was real estate and construction. but that may have created the largest housing bubble in human history. if you go to china, it's easy to see why there's all the talk of a bubble. we discovered that the most populated nation on earth is building houses, districts and cities with no one in them. so this is zhengzhou. and we are on the major highway or the major road. and it's rush hour.

>> gillem tulloch: yeah. >> stahl: and it's almost empty. gillem tulloch is a hong kong- based financial analyst who was one of the first to draw attention to the housing bubble in china. he's showing us around the new eastern district of zhengzhou in one of the most populated provinces in china, not that you'd know it. we found what they call a "ghost city" of new towers with no residents, desolate condos, and vacant subdivisions, uninhabited for miles and miles and miles and miles of empty apartments. why are they empty? i've heard that they have actually been sold. >> tulloch: they've all been sold. they've all been sold. >> stahl: they've all been sold? they're owned. >> tulloch: absolutely. >> stahl: owned by people in china's emerging middle class, who now have enough money to invest but few ways to do it. they're not allowed to invest abroad, banks offer paltry returns, and the stock market is a roller coaster.

but 15 years ago, the government changed its policy and allowed people to buy their own homes, and the flood gates opened. >> tulloch: so what they do is they invest in property, because property prices have always gone up by more than inflation. >> stahl: and they believe it will always go up? >> tulloch: yeah, just like they believed in the u.s. >> stahl: actually, property values have doubled, tripled and more, so people in the middle class have sunk every last penny into buying five, even ten apartments, fueling a building bonanza unprecedented in human history. no nation has ever built so much so fast. how important is real estate to the chinese economy? is it central? >> tulloch: yes. it's the main driver of growth and has been for the last few years. some estimates have it as high as 20% or 30% of the whole economy. >> stahl: but they're not just building housing, they're building cities. >> tulloch: yes. that's right. >> stahl: giant cities being built with people not coming to live here. >> tulloch: yes. i think they're building somewhere between 12 and 24 new

cities every single year. >> stahl: unlike our market- driven economy, in china, it's the government that has spent some $2 trillion to get these cities built, as a way of keeping the economy growing. the assumption is, "if you build it, they'll come." but no one's coming. this is really completely, totally empty and it goes up... gillem took us to this shopping mall that's been standing vacant for three years. can i find this all over china? >> tulloch: yes, you can. they've simply built too much infrastructure too quickly. >> stahl: but i see kfc behind you. i see starbucks over there. i see some other very recognizable american franchises coming in here. at least they... does that mean they have faith that this is going to ignite? >> tulloch: no, these are all fake signs, just to get potential buyers the impression of what it might look like if they moved in. >> stahl: they're not real? so, kfc didn't buy this space or rent this space?

>> tulloch: no, they haven't. >> stahl: starbucks? >> tulloch: no. >> stahl: they just put the sign up? >> tulloch: that's right. >> stahl: it's all make-believe- - nonexistent supply for nonexistent demand. look at that-- swarovski, piaget. they're hoping for high end, too. >> tulloch: h&m. zara. >> stahl: ( laughs ) and it's all potemkin. >> tulloch: yeah. >> stahl: it's surreal and it's everywhere, like the city of ordos in mongolia-- built for a million people who didn't show up. and no, you are not in england. you're in thames town, a development near shanghai built like an english village. >> tulloch: and it was finished, i think, around five or six years ago. and it must have cost close to a billion u.s. dollars. and you'll see, it's still standing there empty. >> stahl: well, i heard that there is some industry there or some business, one business there. >> tulloch: marriage. >> stahl: wedding pictures! and what's more uplifting than a wedding, or ten? you can see these empty developments on the edge of almost every city in china.

what about the idea that china is urbanizing? people are flooding into cities people are flooding into cities, or want to, by the hundreds of millions. and that this really is a smart move-- build the housing to accommodate the urbanization process. >> tulloch: well, so, people are being moved into the cities. but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can afford these apartments which, you know, cost u.s. $100,000 or whatever. i mean, these are poor people moving into the cities, so they're building the wrong sort of apartments. >> stahl: and what's worse-- to build all these massive cities, they've had to tear down what was there before, clearing rice fields and displacing, by some counts, tens of millions of villagers. on the edge of zhengzhou, gillem and i came upon a strange sight. i'm just watching what they're doing. do you have any idea? >> tulloch: i think they're trying to recycle the bricks. >> stahl: these villagers are

salvaging what's left of their homes, bulldozed to make room for more empty condos already encroaching in the distance. there are all these empty apartments over here. can they conceivably move into those up-scale places? >> tulloch: most people in china live on about less than $2 a day. and these apartments probably cost upwards of $50,000 or $60,000 u.s., so it's very unlikely. >> stahl: what will happen to them, do you think? >> tulloch: they'll be forced to relocate somewhere. i have no idea where they'll go. >> stahl: these are the immediate casualties of the building boom. and there's another problem-- analysts warn that all this building has created a bubble that could burst. so, if the bubble bursts, who's left holding the bag? >> tulloch: there are multiple classes of people that are going to get wiped out by this: people who have invested three generations' worth of savings-- so grandparents, parents and children-- into properties will see their savings evaporate. and then, of course, there's 50 million construction workers who are working on all these

projects around china. >> stahl: the prognosis of a bubble about to burst isn't only coming from financial gloom-and- doomers. we heard it from the most unlikely source. are you the biggest home builder in the world? >> wang shi: i think. maybe. >> stahl: you may be? >> wang: yes. only the quantity, not quality. >> stahl: wang shi is modest, but his company, vanke, is a $53 billion real estate empire, building more homes than anyone in china. he was born on the frontlines of communism and joined the red army. but he secretly read forbidden books about capitalism, so that when china liberalized its economy, he rushed to the frontlines of the free market. even he thinks today's situation is out of control. are homes in china too expensive today? >> wang: yeah. >> stahl: here's a number that i saw. a typical apartment in shanghai costs about 45 times the average

resident's annual salary. >> wang: even higher, even higher. >> stahl: what does that mean for your economy if it's just too expensive for the vast majority of people to buy? >> wang: i think that dangerous. >> stahl: dangerous. >> wang: that's the bubble, so i think that's the problem. >> stahl: is there a bubble? >> wang: yes, of course. >> stahl: there is a bubble, and the issue is will it burst or not? that's the big issue. >> wang: yes, if that bubble... that's a disaster. >> stahl: if it burst? >> wang: if it burst, that's a disaster. >> stahl: to try and prevent the disaster, the chinese government decided to act. heard of their one-child policy? since 2011, china has had what amounts to a one-apartment policy, where it's very hard to buy more than one apartment in major cities. because of this, prices plunged. the bubble was being tamed. and yet, the taming was creating all kinds of unintended consequences.

are many developers in debt? >> wang: yes, yes. >> stahl: and are many stopping development in the middle of projects because they don't have the money to go forward? >> wang: yeah, that's problem. that's a huge problem. >> stahl: a problem because the slowing down of construction led to a downturn in the overall economy. unfinished projects dot china, and not just apartment buildings. look at this. can you believe it? analyst anne stephenson-yang, who has traveled across china, showed us a giant project all but abandoned in the port city of tianjin with concrete skeletons as far as the eye can see. the plan is to build a new financial district to rival manhattan, including a lincoln center and a world trade center, only taller. but it all seems frozen. >> anne stephenson-yang: there's supposed to be a rockefeller center here. i hope they have a christmas tree, too. skating rink.

>> stahl: city officials told us everything stopped because developers want to build all the facades at once to match. but on the ground, we heard a different explanation. workers told us that many of these buildings haven't had any work done on them for weeks, months, as if the developers just don't have the money to go on. >> stephenson-yang: it's true. you see that happen first. the migrant workers will go home. that's often the first sign that the debt crisis is starting. >> stahl: the debt crisis? >> stephenson-yang: well, when you stop paying your bills, then everything stops. >> stahl: it could become a debt crisis because of the huge loans most of the developers took out. if they can't repay them, the whole economy will seize up. the government's great fear is that all this could lead to social unrest, and that's not hypothetical-- last year, when home prices fell, it infuriated all those owners of multiple dwellings, who watched the value of their nest eggs plummet.

and there's already been some demonstrations over real estate around the country. >> wang: yes. >> stahl: have you had demonstrations against your showrooms anywhere, you're company? >> wang: often! >> stahl: so often, wang shi shudders to think what would happen if the bubble actually burst. >> wang: if that bubble break, that maybe who know what will happened? maybe that... maybe the next arabic spring... >> stahl: arabic spring. you mean people coming out and demonstrating. >> wang: mm-hmm. >> stahl: a lot of economists say that it's too big for even this government to control. >> wang: mm-hmm. i believe that top leaders have enough smart to deal with that. i hope! >> stahl: you're doing this. >> wang: but that's uncertain. >> stahl: meanwhile, people who can afford it are still buying as much real estate as they can.

they're even finding ways around the one-apartment restriction in big cities. can't buy in beijing? just cross the city line and the boom is in full swing-- flyers advertising new projects, potential buyers crowding buses to see new construction, and new owners line up to register their new apartments. like us in our bubble, they just don't believe the good times will ever end. >> go to 6ominutesovertime.com to hear what one of the richest women in china has to say about criticizing her government. sponsored by viagra. ♪ [ male announcer ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way?

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>> simon: now, an update on a story we first reported last october. it was about a singer and songwriter called rodriguez and the documentary film that chronicles his curious career. ♪ ♪ he worked a lifetime in

obscurity as a day laborer in detroit. but rodriguez was a musical legend in south africa, where albums from the '60s made him bigger than the beatles. his fans believed him dead, and he never saw a penny from his hits-- that is, until he was resurrected by a young swedish filmmaker with the documentary "searching for sugar man." rodriguez is 70 now and needs a little help walking. he can barely see. the world can see and hear him today as the great songwriter he's always been. but there's still one abiding mystery. why do you think it's taken 40 years? >> sixto rodriguez: well, i just wasn't meant to be so lucky then, you know. i think maybe that's it. ( cheers and applause ) >> simon: rodriguez is now playing to sell-out crowds around the world. and as for that documentary-- last sunday night, it won an oscar. i'm bob simon. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

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phil: previously on "the amazing race." dave and connor stepped up to the starting line having faced life's toughest obstacles. >> i was diagnosed with testicular cancer. >> i was diagnosed three years earlier with prostate cancer. phil: they joined an express pass alliance. >> it's not a bad idea. phil: they began the second leg expecting to get their reward. >> it's important that we keep the alliance private. >> you can't control that. phil: then, a costly mistake put them behind. >> the snorkel and fidges. we forgot our snorkel. >> we have to go back. >> come on, connor!

phil: but the determined pair battled back, setting up a footrace for first place. phil: baits and anthony came -- bates and anthony came out on top while dave paid a steep price. >> i can't walk. phil: meanwhile, idries and jamil struggled at sea and came in last. you have been eliminated from the race. nine teams remain. who will be eliminated next ? [captioning made possible by cbs productions, cbs, inc. and ford. drive one.]