It leaves the decision whether to use further borrowing, cost-cutting or new taxes to pay it clearly in the hands of the legislative branch.
It means that the U.S. can continue to finance its operations by borrowing almost zero-cost money today and likely for the foreseeable future (where do you think capital will flight to if the Euro breaks up?).
But they think higher growth is worth the long-term cost of higher borrowing - that if the government is going to be forced to borrow more anyway, it might as well choose upfront what it is going to spend that money on.
On the bond markets, the Spanish government's long-term cost of borrowing fell slightly, to an implied interest rate of just under 6% for 10-year debt.
In July, European finance ministers proposed making the EFSF more flexible, allowing it to buy individual government bonds - which would bring down the cost of borrowing for heavily indebted nations - and to offer emergency credit lines to banks.
Mr Draghi said flatly that the ECB had "never" discussed capping the cost of borrowing - the sovereign bond yield - at a certain level, in Italy and anywhere else.
The nostalgia is understandable: that pact was followed by a long period of strength for the yen and a boom for much of Asia fuelled by deceptively low-cost dollar borrowing and big inflows of Japanese investment.
The traders in Frankfurt were suspended over Euribor - a benchmark rate based on the rate at which banks based in in the eurozone can borrow, in contrast to Libor which is based on the borrowing cost of London-based banks.
BBC: Deutsche Bank suspends traders for alleged Libor-rigging
You need to read the speech for the full explanation, but the basic idea is that higher inflation can help push down the real cost of borrowing - the real interest rate - at times when nominal interest rates can't go any lower.
Under the asset purchasing programme the central bank buys bonds in order to keep the long-term cost of borrowing down.
Stocks surged again on Tuesday and with a near-zero cost of borrowing, the dollar remains a favored tool in the carry trade, which naturally weighs on its worth.
The banks get to deduct the "dividends" of their trust-preferred stock as interest expense (thus lowering the after-tax cost of borrowing) and get to count it as capital.
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"We have an obligation to Mutual Energy as electricity consumers indirectly to make up any shortfall in their revenue, otherwise they won't be able to pay the cost of their borrowing - which we have guaranteed from the day they undertook that borrowing, " Mr Simpson explained.
On Thursday, Spain's borrowing cost at an auction of 10-year bonds was almost 7%, which is a level seen as unsustainable.
This is because the cost of borrowing to the tax-payer is just another way of saying the expected return to the investor.
The British Bankers' Association said the interbank cost of borrowing overnight had fallen - a day after interest rate cuts and governments provided additional liquidity.
As we went to press, Mr Draghi was to put flesh on his pledge to limit the cost of medium-term borrowing by governments (and hence companies).
But if Ms Rousseff has her way, it seems, subsequent meetings will start to bring down the cost of borrowing money in Brazil - and reduce the return on investments in the country.
But why pass up the undeniable cost advantage of short-term borrowing?
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Some say that a formal debt-restructuring system will raise the cost of borrowing and frighten skittish markets.
It sent Spain's cost of borrowing (for the sovereign 10-year bond) toward 7% -- a level which is regarded as unsustainable and has precipitated bailouts of other euro countries.
Because there are fees to do this, the council lowered the gold return over the time period studied and used a short-term cash rate as a benchmark for the borrowing cost.
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Hungary is one notch above so-called "junk" status, meaning its cost of borrowing could soar without help.
Even when spreads were at their widest, Greece and Ireland, the euro-zone's high-yielders, were able to finance their borrowing needs at a reasonable cost.
The gap between Spanish and German long-term borrowing rates also reached a record high, as did the cost of insuring against a Spanish sovereign default.
Some of this rally is down to sheer relief that the market is out of crisis mode (the cost of borrowing in the money markets is back to near-normal levels, for example).
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What was supposed to be a deal that brings in more jobs in the short term could potentially harm long-term job growth in Rhode Island if the cost of borrowing for schools, roads and improving infrastructure goes up.
When it comes to the cost of government borrowing, they say there's nothing magical - or deadly - about interest rates that begin with a six, or even a seven.
In recent weeks there has been a rise in both LIBOR (a gauge of banks' borrowing costs) and the credit-default-swap spreads on bank bonds (the cost of insuring against default risk).
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Right at the opening, there was a spike in the implicit interest cost to Italy of borrowing for two years (the yield on two-year bonds) to a euro-era record of around 8% - and then it fell back to 7.5% or so, which is where it was on Friday (which is still high).
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