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This was an excellent read and makes you put life in perspective! Xu Hongci was a communist member studying Medicine but he became disenchanted with some of the policies of Mao Zedong and when he shared his constructive criticism with party members he was labelled as a revolutionary and sent to 20 years prison working in a labor camp. Trivial offences were enough to land anyone in prison. For example two 10 years old were sentenced to 12 & 15 years in prison for writing 'Down With Mao Dezong' on a toilet wall and craving 'Down with Mao Zedong' on a pumpkin respectively.

It's estimated that between 50-70 million Chinese citizens died during Mao Zedong's tenure. Many of these deaths were due to malnourishment and starvation as a result of Mao's policies of turning arable farmland into useless backyard furnaces. Conditions in the labour camps were even worse as prisoners were forced to do manual labour for 20 hours a day and fed with one meal a day- a bowl of rice. Prisoners often died of starvation and disease from squalor living conditions (sleeping on the floor 10 in a small cell). The ones that didn't die of disease or starvation were beaten and tortured depending on how sadistic the prison management was.

Xu spent 14 years in a labour camp until he managed to escape to Mongolia. Of the 550,000 labour camp inmates he is one of the only people (if not the only) who escaped and avoided recapture (execution was punishment) to tell his tale.

yo if you're interested in the growth delusion, check out doughnut economics, by kate raworth. goes way beyond the limitations of GDP to suggest an entirely new set of metaphors and basic measures for economic health.

Since 2007 no Australian Prime Minister that has been elected has sat out a full term. We've had 5 Prime Ministers in the last 12 years. Abbott was always a divisive figure but this book gave great insight into all the issues behind the scenes, which were predominantly his manipulative chief of staff Peta Credlin who he refused to get rid of.

Another book by Karl Marlantes.



This is a detailed war experience from Karl Marlantes who was an Infantry Officer in the Vietnam War. It's an incredible book that makes you feel like your in the harbinger jungles of Vietnam. The title is called Matterhorn, which is named after a platoon that Marlantes lost half his platoon in seizing, which was ironic as they had previously seized the same hill only to be ordered off elsewhere.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTJsiXOeMIE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTJsiXOeMIE</a>

if you're interested in books about war, which would make sense under your current circumstances, have you read The Things They Carried? classic. also svetlana alexievich's oral history of soviet women combatants in WW2, The Unwomanly Face of War, is one of the best things i read last year.

I haven't posted in this thread for a while. I haven't read either of those books but I will have a look in the library. The Things They Carried sounds like a great book, particularly since it's based on the Vietnam War.

Lately I've been reading mostly books about personal finance including the following:





Reading these books has really inspired me to focus more on my superannuation so I can retire being financially independent. All of these books hammer home the message of compounding growth and spending less than you earn and investing the difference in the stock market, which should preferably be in low cost index fund. In Australia we have compulsory superannuation so employers invest 9.5% of your salary into super. However, making the minimal contributions won't be enough for most people so you have to invest more. Scott Pape recommends investing at least 15% of your salary into super and Tony Robbins recommends investing 20% of your salary into index funds to be able to retire financially independent.

I've contacted payroll and got them to contribute an extra 3% of my salary to super. I've got mortgages and student debt atm that I have to pay down, which is why I'm only investing 12.5% of my total salary but I plan on increasing the amount whenever I get a pay rise by contacting payroll. Assuming the stock market returns historical returns of around 10%  I should be able to retire when I have $1 million in Super (670k US dollars).

Compound growth illustration from Unshakeable:


Edit- I'm 29 and so far my super is where Joe was at when he was 25.

This book was a great read!

"For decades, politicians- Republicans and Democrats both- and pundits had all been spewing empty platitudes of praise for "the heartland", "real America", and "small-town values". Then, with shameless hypocrisy, they supported the very policies that helped destroy thriving small towns.
Corporate elites said they needed free trade agreements, so they got them. Manufacturers said they needed tax breaks and public-money incentives in order to keep their plants operating in the United States, so they got them. Banks and financiers needed looser regulations, so they got them. Employers said they needed weaker unions- or no unions at all- so they got them. Private equity firms said they needed carried interest and secrecy, so they got them. Everybody, including Lancastrians themselves, said they needed lower taxes, so they got them. What did Lancaster and a hundred other towns like it get? Job losses, slashed wages, poor civic leadership, social dysfunction, drugs".

^^^ that book rules.