Years later, I asked Hella what had prompted the pair to embark on such a financially ruinous, transcontinental telephonic rampage.
The levels of autocracy, criminality, tin-pot cronyism, and resurgent nationalisms emerged on such a heroic and ruinous scale that the historian Stephen Kotkin has referred to the less fortunate republics of the former Soviet Union as "Trashcanistans".
Mr. Johnson describes the most important of those installations, in Okinawa, as a place where the impact of so many soldiers on such a small island has been ruinous for the permanent inhabitants.
Divorce is such an emotionally devastating, financially ruinous event that it might be wise to take a close look at its root cause -- marriage.
To avoid such potentially ruinous costs, managers of big funds resort to a variety of strategies, which diminish any edge in their stock picking prowess.
They inherit a ruinous federal debt.
Today it is in a ruinous state.
But this achievement came at a ruinous cost.
"Even if accurate, it's a ruinous diagnosis.
