Word: ruinous
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Some of Chrysler's deficits result from the high cost of meeting clean air standards and fuel efficiency requirements. But it was the gas shortages of last spring that triggered Chrysler's ruinous 1979 sales slump (indeed, recently Ford and General Motors have also been losing money on their U.S. operations). Yet the fundamental problem has been poor management; Chrysler has consistently failed to come up with enough models that sell well, and its share of the U.S. auto market has slumped from 14% three years ago to 11% now. The firm's total indebtedness, including that...
...longer do people starve by the millions or die of such blights as smallpox, syphilis or malaria. Medical care is available to everyone, and by a combination of propaganda, pay supplements, and free birth-control devices, China seems to be making some headway in its efforts to halt its ruinous population growth, by limiting couples to only two children...
Successful as the company has been, the market is so mercurial that no cosmetics firm can ever really be safe; a bad mistake can be ruinous. A classic example is Max Factor's "Just Call Me Maxi" fragrance, introduced last year to compete with Charlie. It came about four years too late, as taste was at the point of switching back to romance and mystery, and bombed so badly that Factor plunged deep into the red; the debacle is widely believed to have cost President Sam Kalish, a Revlon alumnus...
...army. Its first line of defense in a turbulent Middle East is the diplomatic and military support of the U.S., which it will jeopardize if it plays games with the dollar. Anyway, the Saudis are stuck with the buck; by now they could get out of dollars only at ruinous cost to themselves. There just are not enough marks, yen or Swiss francs available for them to buy with their dollars. Long before they converted any large portion, their sales would have driven the value of their remaining dollars down so much as to make their own reserves worth much...
Many Americans harbor an unwholesome and even dangerous contempt for the justice system. Neither criminals nor victims have much faith in its workings: the one class does not fear it much, and the other does not trust it. A mugger leaves a victim crippled, life blighted, and bound to ruinous expenses for treatment. Through plea bargaining and parole indulgences, the attacker emerges from his "punishment" in a matter of months or less, to resume his career. The social contract gets badly tattered in its passage through such a system...