Sentences with phrase «a white elephant»

«Almost by definition, huge infrastructure projects, especially those in the developing world, are white elephants,» says Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

These gestures often vary in scale and cost, but one thing I have found consistent in my years of running businesses is the astonishing amount of wastefulness due to completely irrelevant or useless gifts that end up at the bottom of a wastebasket or, worse, in a white elephant gift exchange.

What critics said: «It's at once minimalist and maximalist, cynical and dopey, a big - boy white elephant art film that is actually a lean and mean suspense set - piece machine.»

It's been popular to assume that physical stores are white elephants: increasingly obsolete remnants of an earlier age.

Besides inflating the largest real estate bubble in world history, this massive infusion of debt also financed many white elephant projects, such as useless infrastructure and excess steel, automobile, and cement factories.

But the conclusion of the Games has left a mass of white elephants in its wake: the majority of the sporting venues and Olympic Village have all fallen into neglect now that the Games are over.

In the meantime, we'd rather sit out the next move down and not risk the squeeze and instead start thinking about what the next white elephant nation building / wealth expropriating capex binge China will come up with next.

It's a remarkable turnaround for a controversial project that some critics dubbed a white elephant after the Liberal government sunk $ 395 million into the «discovery district» hub over the years.

It is the work of a bear market to reduce the prices of the white elephants until they are cheap enough to interest a new class of buyers.

These effects are significantly larger during periods of slow growth and in countries with high public investment efficiency, which is critical to ensure that resources are not squandered on «white elephant» projects.

«It's like the big white elephant sitting in the middle of the room, yet nobody wants to see it.»

This is one of those «white elephants» in the room.

The process not only changes the old burdensome craft secrets in the superstructure into white elephants, it also conceals a genuinely destructive element.

@Mike — I don't have the time or inclination to unpack all the dung left behind by the white elephants you're ignoring... a few points will suffice...

Exchanging white elephant gifts is one of my very favorite Christmas traditions.

Victor Paul Furnish in The Moral Teaching of Paul (1979) contrasted those who treated scripture as a sacred cow and those who considered it a white elephant.

In a little more than a year's time he turns the order's latest white elephant, an estate in rural Minnesota that the order hopes to convert into a retreat, into a going concern.

It makes me sick that so many people praise this man and completely ignore the huge white elephant in the room.

Schools create «white elephants» if they don't teach faculty and students effective use of the new technologies and resources.

So we have Jeremiah's department Christmas party tonight and I realized yesterday that we are supposed to bring a white elephant gift.

My roommate and I threw our third annual Galentine's party — i.e. waffle bar + fondue extravaganza with a white elephant gift exchange (I got and am so excited to read this) and then I spent my actual V - day holed up in my room working on a bunch of finals projects and cleaning the heck out of my room.

In keeping with the white Christmas dinner party theme, I asked guests to bring white elephant gifts that we could exchange.

Plenty of relaxation, family time, white elephant gift exchanges, and of course... more holiday desserts than you could hope for!

Whether you're looking to gift a Paleo foodie friend, the vegan hostess with the mostest, or a co-worker who's on a vanilla kick, we have something for every Secret Santa and white elephant on your list.

It was the big white elephant in the room but the position was ignored.

Arsenal will then lose income, stadium will become an empty white elephant and Arsenal will decline.

I would pick Highbruy and the trophies we won over there than this white elephant.

You know where I'm going with this right, yes the white elephant in the Arsenal dressing room, the great Arsene Wenger.

A long - term project, the new stadium could become a white elephant if the football side of the club is negligently managed.

Why would you want a white elephant in the middle of the east end.

There is genuine feeling that the ES could become a white elephant instead of the glittering jewel it was supposed to be especially if the gunners continue to underperform and emphasise pretty soccer at the expense of winning.

Instead of a white elephant gift exchange, ask friends to bring one (gently worn) article of clothing to contribute to the swap.

Gold and white elephant scarf ($ 24.95).

Available for the world traveler ($ 26) or the domestic one ($ 22), this gift begs to be stolen at the white elephant office party.

That's like saying don't think of a white elephant.

I asked if the staff had a white elephant exchange or where the collie came from.

Their conversation evolves from small talk to profanity - laden confessions of white elephants and dark secrets that bond them for life.

Though Park District officials called the Wilder Mansion a «white elephant» when the swap was first proposed, they have agreed to accept the building if the city installs a new elevator and sprinkler system, said Park District director William Grodsky.

After all, the once - deserted mall was considered one of the biggest white elephants in Chicagoland.

The Fisher Price Soother Elephant is a hard, durable white elephant with a handle.

For example, we found that voters in Croatia tend to favour «white elephant» projects and «bridges to nowhere.»

He built the motorway between Accra and Tema, and it was called a white elephant project because at that time, the number of cars using it were very few.

Joined up thinking will ensure new transport schemes are part of a wider and connected transport strategy and don't end up as tomorrow's white elephants.

Nkrumah was building industries, he wanted Ghana to become self - reliant, some of the same accusations that he was driving Ghana into debt, that Akosombo was unnecessary, that he was busy doing white elephant projects, and all that.

Whether it was the people of the North East rejecting politicians plundering their earnings to pay for white elephant vanity projects, working class voters rejecting apparently over-generous welfare arrangements for EU migrants, or left leaning Labour voters rejecting the supposed excesses of the capitalist system, fairness lies at the heart of British anger.

Their German counterparts, by contrast, scattered their work among many projects and tended to prize engineering virtue above practicality, yielding tanks like the Tiger that may have been individually superior in battle but were few in number and often «white elephants» that broke down in the field.

There is often criticism from some commentators that in this age of austerity, the Falkland Islands is a financial white elephant.

The authors go on to illustrate that the remaining 20 cents of loan monies are used to finance white elephant projects, «ghost» projects» (i.e. fictitious roads, schools, soldiers, etc.), government salaries, ineffective development and infrastructural projects or it leaves the country through capital flight within the coming years — leaving little to nothing of actual development monies for the citizenry of these countries.

There is a runaway train on the white elephant line.

They described the Job 600 as a white elephant project, when Nkrumah was putting it up to host the 2nd Organization of African Unity (OAU) Conference in Accra in 1965.