Under the new system, if a player makes the last 16 in each tournament, he will be guaranteed about £90,000".
Bagwell is guaranteed about $17 million in 2006 whether or not he plays.
But Mexico has largely been an onlooker during such squabbles; under the 1944 treaty, it is guaranteed about 500 billion gallons a year.
The contract is for two years with a club option for 2006, and two officials said Looper was guaranteed about $6.5 million.
This season, Mr. Carter, an eight-time N.B.A. all-star, will earn roughly eight times as much as Mr. Williams, who is guaranteed about $4.5 million for two years.
In Denmark, employers have carte blanche to hire and fire, and in most cases laid-off people are guaranteed about 80 percent of their wages in benefits, a figure capped for high earners.
Bledsoe is guaranteed about $24 million over three years, but to cut him at that point, the team would take a big salary cap hit, rendering such a move highly unlikely.
But there is little point in the government offering them, particularly when, in the long run, nothing is guaranteed about the tax-financed benefits that it will still be providing.The use of guarantees does not undermine the case for more private-pension provision, so long as they are properly designed and are assigned a proper cost.
"When you can remove nearly all the risk involved and guarantee yourself a profit, it's not a bad business decision," said Darwyn Bach, a farmer in St. Leo, Minn., who said that he is guaranteed about $1,000 an acre in revenue before he puts a single seed in the ground because of crop insurance.
The N.B.A.'s new TV deal will bring in twenty-four billioverollars over the next eight years, and players are guaranteed about half of the league's revenue, which means that the per-team salary cap (and the salary floor, the minimum amount teams must spend on players) is rising sharply.
"At the moment a top-16 player is guaranteed about £65,000 annually before he takes his cue out of his case.
