Earlier in this decade when a strong dollar tended to diminish profits, I.B.M.'s earnings reports described the effects of the currency translations at considerable length.

It is ridiculous to suggest that legalizing drugs will diminish drug-related profits.

And the Europeans, led by the French, seem adamant about keeping restrictions that diminish profits, and perhaps jobs, in the United States.

He said the trouble in Asia would reduce American exports to the region and diminish profits of companies that operate there.

The Commission members present voted in favor of Marcello and decided Carolla should be given control over additional crime family interests, but nothing of importance that would diminish the influence and profits of Marcello.

But its hefty cost will certainly diminish profits.

At the least, most professionals concur, the recession has been a mixed blessing: It has encouraged everyone involved to come up with creative, cost-saving ideas even as it has sometimes diminished profits.

This trust in corporations helped produce a politics that has been reluctant to impose new tax or regulatory burdens that might diminish corporate profits.

The added security measures virtually all diminish profits.

It was here in Kansas City, at the 2005 food aid conference, that the Bush administration pushed for a fundamental change in food aid that would have diminished profits to domestic agribusiness and shipping companies.