The deal, in theory, avoids the possibility of a imminent default on US payment obligations and lets Republicans off the hook.

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If the debt ceiling is not raised, the US government will not have the spending authority to meet current payment obligations like federal employee salaries, health and retirement benefits.

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The fine print on many amnesty agreements offers taxing authorities the ability to re-impose penalties and interest waived during the program if the taxpayer fails to meet his or her reporting and payment obligations in the future.

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On the other hand, when Germany's Herstatt Bank failed to meet its international payment obligations in the mid-1970s, that event caused a serious globalized payment-system crisis -- even though Herstatt itself would not have been on anyone's list of major financial institutions at the time.

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For example, if a company is shipping products internationally, but still needs to guarantee delivery to receive full payment or to maintain contractual obligations, it faces a potentially complex set of options to complete the delivery.

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Yet regulators and lawsuit-fearful auditors pressed banks and other financial firms to relentlessly knock down the book value of this subprime paper, even in cases where these obligations were being serviced in the payment of principal and interest.

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