Old Habits

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944–1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves, following rules of the pre-WWII gold standard. The longer an institution spent in the gold standard (and the older the policymakers), the stronger the correlation between gold reserves and currency. Since dollars and gold were not perfect substitutes, the Bretton Woods system never worked as expected. Even after radical institutional change, history still shapes the decisions of policymakers.

Joe Brady was cynical, exhausted-of-life and people. He sat, bare-chested, on the edge of the bed, in his boxers. His body was a road map of scars and burns. He was worn from bullets, cuts, scrapes and old stitches. He was unshaven and his hairline was heavily receded and what was left was gray and patchy. He didn't care and why should he? He didn't care too much about anything, especially fashion. Brady appeared trance-like. His eyes were glassy as he stared at the x-ray while the doctor informed him of his condition. He had metal pins in his elbow so the bones healed in alignment. They stuck out so the surgeon could remove them easily. Both his knees had depleted cartilage layers between the joints causing his bones to rub together. Osteoarthritis was a common condition for cartilage failure. Brady's left shoulder had previously shattered and he was experiencing Avascular Necrosis. Pain would become more and more severe. It would lead to a limited range of motion and invariably further pain and chronic fatigue. Getting on a plane bound for Tokyo was the last thing on his mind. Retired New York City police detective Joe Brady is invited to Tokyo by global super-brand The Oshiro Corporation, wanting to commend him for bravery and his saving of over a hundred Oshiro employees in a hostage crisis thirty years ago. Accompanied by a loyal, yet angry, friend, a reluctant Brady accepts the invitation only for a violent past to catch up with him and the truth behind The Oshiro Corporation being revealed. Trebilcook's 'Old Habits' novel formed the basis for his acclaimed speculative script for a potential sixth and final 'Die Hard' movie, entitled 'Old Habits Die Hard'. Trebilcook can be followed on Twitter via the handle @BenTrebilcook Cover design by Ant Gardner antgardner.com

Kick bad habits—for good! Nearly everybody has at least one self-destructive habit they can’t eliminate—from spending too much time online to eating too much ice cream. Changing an old habit is no easy business and more than 90% of people relapse within a year. This one-of-a-kind guide helps readers separate good habits from bad, evaluate the risks and benefits, prepare themselves for change, and make the change—for good. • Dr. Marlatt is a groundbreaking author at the top of the relapse prevention field. • This book shares the latest research on kicking old habits for good.

Discusses the Buddhist concept of shenpa in order to describe how to become free from the destructive energy experienced during moments of conflict.

This book argues that the Burmese military regime has always favoured an isolationist-type policy that finds its grassroots in Ne Win’s autarchic and xenophobic era as well as in Burma’s royal traditions, but without being completely cut off from the outside world. This policy approach is well suited to the Burmese authoritarian state which boasts an important strategic position in the region. In the past decade, the politics of “isolationism without isolation” has been skilfully developed by Burma’s military elite in order to preserve itself from both internal and external threats. Since the Depayin crackdown in May 2003, every step the Burmese junta has taken indicates that it has been consciously defining both its foreign policy and its internal political agenda according to these isolationist tendencies, as the recent fallbacks that followed the “Saffron Revolution” (September 2007) and the Cyclone Nargis (May 2008) illustrate. Not only does the military regime tend to strategically withdraw itself from the regional scene, by choosing only a few but crucial diplomatic and commercial partners like China, India, Singapore, Russia or Thailand, but it also gradually isolates itself from the rest of the Burmese society, by opting for a strategic and nationalist entrenchment which was perfectly highlighted by the purge of the pragmatic Military Intelligence Services (2004), the transfer of the capital to Naypyidaw (2005) and the strict control over the transitional process initiated by its own “Road Map towards a disciplined democracy” and undisrupted by the recent crises.

A landmark book about how we form habits, and what we can do with this knowledge to make positive change We spend a shocking 43 percent of our day doing things without thinking about them. That means that almost half of our actions aren’t conscious choices but the result of our non-conscious mind nudging our body to act along learned behaviors. How we respond to the people around us; the way we conduct ourselves in a meeting; what we buy; when and how we exercise, eat, and drink—a truly remarkable number of things we do every day, regardless of their complexity, operate outside of our awareness. We do them automatically. We do them by habit. And yet, whenever we want to change something about ourselves, we rely on willpower. We keep turning to our conscious selves, hoping that our determination and intention will be enough to effect positive change. And that is why almost all of us fail. But what if you could harness the extraordinary power of your unconscious mind, which already determines so much of what you do, to truly reach your goals? Wendy Wood draws on three decades of original research to explain the fascinating science of how we form habits, and offers the key to unlocking our habitual mind in order to make the changes we seek. A potent mix of neuroscience, case studies, and experiments conducted in her lab, Good Habits, Bad Habits is a comprehensive, accessible, and above all deeply practical book that will change the way you think about almost every aspect of your life. By explaining how our brains are wired to respond to rewards, receive cues from our surroundings, and shut down when faced with too much friction, Wood skillfully dissects habit formation, demonstrating how we can take advantage of this knowledge to form better habits. Her clear and incisive work shows why willpower alone is woefully inadequate when we’re working toward building the life we truly want, and offers real hope for those who want to make positive change.

Every day teachers encounter moments of racial and gender tension in their classrooms. In the most drastic cases, these situations erupt into overt conflict or violence, while in other instances they go largely unnoted. Such incidents reveal that despiteequality legislation and the good intentions of many teachers, racial and gender problems persist. How can teachers more effectively handle these moments? How can they prevent them in the future? This book is the first to unite two major schools of educational philosophy, traditional American pragmatism and contemporary poststructuralism, to offer both theoretical and concrete suggestions for dealing with actual classroom race and gender related events. While schools are one of the most common settings ofrace and gender discord, this book upholds schools as the primary location for alleviating systems of oppression. For it is within schools that children learn how to enact and respond to race and gender through the cultivation of habits, including dispositions, bodily comportment, and ways of interacting. In a spirit of social transformation, this book argues that when students learn to inhabit their races and genders more flexibly, many classroom problems can be prevented and current social structures of identity-based oppression can be alleviated.