However, this rule can, and often is, bypassed through prime brokerage subsidiaries in the UK since the UK has absolutely no statutory limit on the amount that can be re-hypothecated.

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Now I wouldn't like to give you the impression that I am a serial offender, but last year I had another encounter with a police officer, on the M5 motorway, along which I had been proceeding at a speed some several miles an hour above the statutory limit.

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But a statutory debt limit is a poor substitute for a constitutional balanced budget amendment.

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In the last 20 years, the U.S. has permanently increased its statutory debt limit 14 times.

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From 1790 to 1916, when America was free of the welfare state, the U.S. borrowed, but neither chronically nor under a statutory debt limit.

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The Treasury Department has already passed its statutory borrowing limit and is currently funding the government under extraordinary measures with a limited shelf life.

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But to facilitate the extraordinary demands of war finance, Congress set a statutory debt limit up to which the Treasury could borrow as needed without further authorization.

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That is when the statutory debt limit will be breached.

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Are they serious about enacting statutory PAYGO, attaching it to raising the debt limit?

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As US federal debt approaches its statutory ceiling, confidence on Capitol Hill is growing that a deal to raise the limit will soon be struck, avoiding the theoretical possibility of default.

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