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• n  (baseball) the person who plays the position of catcher
• n  (baseball) a fence or screen (as behind home plate) to prevent the ball from traveling out of the playing field
• n  a precaution in case of an emergency
  he acted as a backstop in case anything went wrong
• v  act as a backstop

• At about the same time, their father sold off the company, and with it went the cozy billets in adult life that had always served as an emotional backstop for the boys.
• I encourage it to use it this fund as creatively as possible to provide backstop for accounts across our financial system to maintain confidence on the part of savers and investors.
• For instance, the Baucus bill does not at this point, at least contain Snowe's proposal for a public plan as a backstop; instead, it would create member-run co-ops as an .

• catcher

News & Articles

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• ECB official: bond purchase plan aims to carry out monetary policy, not help governments
  KARLSRUHE, Germany — A top European Central Bank official has defended the bank's key crisis backstop in a second day of hearings before Germany's Federal Constitutional Court.
  June 12, 2013 - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
• ECB official defends bond purchase plan
  KARLSRUHE, Germany (AP) — A top European Central Bank official has defended the bank's key crisis backstop in a second day of hearings before Germany's Federal Constitutional Court.
  June 12, 2013 - Washington Examiner
• ECB official defends crisis action in German court
  A top European Central Bank official is defending the bank's key financial crisis backstop against a legal challenge in Germany's constitutional court. Joerg Asmussen says the ECB's plan to purchase bonds ...
  June 11, 2013 - Associated Press via Yahoo! News

Quotes

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• Rudy Giuliani in Forbes
  Senator McCain has said that he does not support a national catastrophic fund as a backstop. I do,Giuliani said. "Senator McCain believes that FEMA should handle this."
• Henry Paulson in AFP
  This facility is intended to serve as an ultimate liquidity backstop,and will be available through December 2009, Paulson said.
• Ben Bernanke in CharlotteObserver.com
  That experience suggests that, at least under the most stressed conditions, some form of government backstop may be necessary to ensure continued securitization of mortgages,Bernanke said.