The Force Awakens: the Individualistic and Contemporary Heroine

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is not the hero’s journey as George Lucas previously conceptualized it. Instead, the story line of The Force Awakens leads me to believe that it creates a new iteration of the hero myth. It follows the contemporary heroine’s journey while conforming to the essential construct of the hero monomyth. First, the contemporary heroine’s journey focuses primarily on the greater good and secondarily on her own personal journey, which is the converse of the traditional hero’s journey. Second, the contemporary heroine’s self is awakened and called to adventure in a different way than the traditional hero. Third, the traditional hero receives guidance on his journey, while the contemporary heroine pushes ahead alone, striving to save her society from despair

Brazil's rise and the role of big business

The heart of Brazil’s recent rise in international relations lies in its growing influence in the global economic arena. This article evaluates one aspect of economic activity – the emergence of Brazilian transnational corporations. The article argues that an important legacy of decades of state intervention in the market fostered the successful internationalisation of big business in Brazil, impacting on Brazil’s international profile. However, this legacy also hampered its systemic competitiveness as evidenced by various international competitiveness rankings. The article concludes with some remarks on the long-run sustainability of Brazil’s current economic performance

THE ZERO POINT FRAME AND BLACKHOLES

I will show that my own zero point Model supports not only the no-hair proposals, but also the Bekenstein bound on information from an event horizon. This model, based upon a static case also supports the cosmic censorship proposal

Prohibition

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5995/thumbnail.jp

Asset rundown after retirement: the importance of rate of return shocks

The authors provide evidence that households run down their assets after retirement by tracking a group of elderly households over the 1996–2004 period. They find that assets decline for these households approaching the end of the life cycle. Had there not been a run-up in asset prices due in large part to a historically remarkable rise in housing prices, assets would have declined even faster.Retirement ; Investments ; Business cycles

Assessing the changing roles of the Brazilian Development Bank

Since it was founded in 1952, the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES; Brazilian National Bank for Economic and Social Development) has been at the centre of Brazil's industrialisation and development strategy. It played a key role in the evolution of policies from import substitution to market-opening and privatisation, to the ‘new developmentalism’. The article evaluates and discusses whether BNDES fulfils the three typical functions expected of national development banks: financial sector development; business climate enhancement; and knowledge services