Word: ruinous
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...enabled him to loll around reading Marx, collecting rare first editions and traveling. He thought of himself as a private man of letters, a scholar-prince supported by stipends from his family. Unfortunately his father's money was not always enough. Parental disagreements and later Germany's ruinous inflation burst Benjamin's financial cushion and forced him to live by his pen. He put the problem of freelancing succinctly when he wrote, "There are places in which I can earn a minimum and places in which I can live on a minimum, but there is no place...
Volvo's troubles are symptomatic of the ills and abuses that are rendering Swedish companies uncompetitive on the world market, yet, despite the advent of a more conservative government, Sweden remains fully committed to the welfare state. Unable to lay off surplus workers or curb ruinous absenteeism (sometimes as high as 20%), Volvo saw its operating costs soar. Once noted for well-built, moderately priced autos, Volvo was forced to increase its prices until its top-of-the-line 264GL, at $10,500, is nearly as expensive as a Cadillac Coupe De Ville. Volvo sales have slumped globally...
Just now, Travolta holds the winning hand; or most of it, anyhow. There is no wild card. No overheated tales of profligacy and indulgence. No seamy revelations. The usual insinuations, to be sure, but no backstairs gossip that is verifiable, no sagas of ruinous excess and careening self-destruction. Superstars very often provide their own portfolio of legends to join the ones fashioned for the screen: the abandon of Brando, the hipster brashness of James Dean. If the material isn't available, then the superstars get tagged with it?De Niro is alleged to be Garboesque, Pacino sullen and distant...
...short hours before dawn, turning out his strange songs and working occasionally on "my long-boasted-about but seldom-heard symphony"-all on the Steinway concert grand that stands in the living room of his modest Los Angeles house. Zevon seems to be living out a myth of ruinous romantic excess that is both self-perpetuating and self-destructive. "F. Scott Fitzevon," some friends call him. Jokes his mentor, Jackson Browne, best of all the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriters, who has taken a strong hand in the production of both Zevon albums: "There's part of Warren that...
...First of all, a victory by the opposition would mean the loss in a few months of all the economic results achieved over 20 years. No objective observer can believe that the policies inspired by the Common Program and planned by the leaders of the opposition would not have ruinous consequences for the French economy. The Socialists can obviously engage in doubletalk, making demagogic promises and then letting it be known that they are the best rampart against Communism. But if the promises made by Mr. Mitterrand are fulfilled in the first weeks following an opposition victory...