But Mexico has largely been an onlooker during such squabbles; under the 1944 treaty, it is guaranteed about 500 billion gallons a year.
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.
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.
"At the moment a top-16 player is guaranteed about £65,000 annually before he takes his cue out of his case.
Kosovo's security is guaranteed by about 5,000 NATO troops, and the international community hopes that the potential calming of ethnic tensions engendered by any agreement would tip the scale decisively toward peace.
The contract is for two years with a club option for 2006, and two officials said Looper was guaranteed about $6.5 million.
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.
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.
