Word: moribundity
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When De Benedetti took over in 1978 as Olivetti's managing director, the company was almost moribund. It had not paid a dividend in four years, had more than $1 billion in debts and was losing $6 million a month. Olivetti is now the most profitable Italian industrial company. Last year sales increased 22.5%, to $2.6 billion, and profits rose to $201 million...
Nutty? Kooky? Surely, but that's what America is all about in Don DeLillo's White Noise. This book is a paradox: unrelentingly frivolous, its moribund satire of our techno-whizbang pop culture is ultimately depressing. White Noise swirls with the sounds of contemporary life--televisions, radios, appliances, sirens. The Babylon inhabited by DeLillo's samaritans is awash in information, sensation, and objects of diversion but everyone's so numb they don't mind, and they adopt a fusty capitalist attitude respecting their decadence. As one character earnestly asserts. "It makes you proud to be an American: we still lead...
...legislative front, conser vatives had nibbled away at Duarte's power and authority. Lacking a legislative majority, the Christian Democrats were unable to prevent the opposition from blocking the reform of El Salvador's moribund justice system or from slashing the executive branch's operating budget. The strongwilled President did not help things by refusing to seek deals with the opposition when it might have advanced his political aims. Said a veteran opposition figure: "He doesn't look for cooperation...
...Brussels as the symbolic capital of the world, but President Wilson pressed for Geneva. The Swiss later commemorated his support by naming the quai leading toward the Palais des Nations the Quai Wilson. By the time the sprawling marble palais was completed in 1937, however, the league was so moribund that Geneva was sometimes ( referred to as the City of Lost Causes. (This experience inspired C. Northcote Parkinson to include in Parkinson's Law the thesis that the building of a new headquarters is invariably a symptom of institutional decay.) Very little remains of the old dream, except perhaps...
...1970s, when the companies were trying to stash away their megaprofits in ventures that would pay off in leaner times. But now, just when the investments should be ripening, many have turned up sour. Last week Exxon said that it is trying to find a buyer for its moribund office-equipment division, an enterprise that has cost the company some $100 million. When Exxon challenged Xerox, IBM and Wang by introducing its Vydec word processors, Qyx typewriters and Qwip facsimile transmitters in the late 1970s, the innovative machines drew praise. But the oil company failed to follow up with more...