We suspect these have functioned as holding companies to place profits out of reach, thereby evading taxes and diverting funds generated by international sales of teaching materials.

"And we have a company which places profits before safety."

Disaffected musicians argue that executives place profits ahead of artistic freedom.

Dell Computer said it would place financial liquidity and profits ahead of growth.

That claim is true, according to a Fortune magazine survey that placed pharmaceutical profits in 1999 at 18.9 percent.

Inner City's chairman, Pierre Sutton, says the companies need to stop placing profits ahead of the public good.

It only succeeds in opening it to private companies that will place profits before patients.

Newspaper chains, which bought many of these independent papers in the 1970's and 1980's, are often criticized for placing profits above journalism.

Colnaghi, the 228-year-old London dealer, has been accused of placing profits before patriotism in refusing to make the small painting affordable to the national museum.

New York hospitals are being suffocated, according to one viewpoint, by the government and by insurance companies that place profits perilously above patients' needs.