barely a pot to piss in

The United States of America hasn't a pot to piss in nor a nickel to their name. They have systematically raided every "locked box" in their posession. This includes the following:

• The Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) - $15 Billion Dollars
  

This is often known as the "plunge protection team," they have a history of routinely trying to keep the smouldering pile of crap, the US Dollar, from plunging to levels which would make the foreign holders jittery about their multi-trillion dollar stash of dollars.

Now that they've officially raided the accounts of this menace, the dollar plunge will be able to take place despite the manipulative practices of the monied vultures who control the ESF.

• Government Pension Funds (G-Funds) - $65.3 billion

It sure is awesome to work for the United States Government, isn't it? Especially since they've come up with an excuse to raid your pension fund and eleminate your retirement. If I don't hear some outcry about this one, then I shall have to worry for what they might try to get away with down the line.

Bush and the other Washington shills are doing one heluva job, indeed. I just can't wait until they go ahead and eliminate all entitlement spending (you know, social security, medicare, government retirement pensions, etc...) and pump it all into corporate welfare. That'll really say alot about our integrity as a people.

I would like to add, as well, that its a great idea to go ahead and raid the locked boxes; it is far easier than cutting the budget for one of these multi-billion dollar defence contractors. After all, if they were to attempt something like that, then they wouldn't receive any more bribes and what fun would that be?

Maybe we can make a difference, maybe we can do something about this situation. If you want to make change in this country, then you should observe how the multinationals did it.

So, in order to change the way that bills are being passed and ensure that the money is put back into the locked boxes and pulled out of corporate wellfare, it will be necessary for the government workers, retirees, etc, to hire lobbyists ($200/hour) and equip them with large sums of money (about $100 million, under the table of course).

These lobbyists can then transfer the money into the swiss accounts of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Tom Delay and all of the other key players. Maybe that would bring about some real change in Washington, eh?

Treasury Dept. Moves to Avoid Debt Limit

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Associated Press
Monday, March 6, 2006; 11:29 AM

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary John Snow notified Congress on Monday that the administration has now taken "all prudent and legal actions," including tapping certain government retirement funds, to keep from hitting the $8.2 trillion national debt limit.

In a letter to Congress, Snow urged lawmakers to pass a new debt ceiling immediately to avoid the nation's first-ever default on its obligations.

"I know that you share the president's and my commitment to maintaining the full faith and credit of the U.S. government," Snow said in his letter to leaders in the House and Senate.

Treasury officials, briefing congressional aides last week, said that the government will run out of maneuvering room to keep from exceeding the current limit sometime during the week of March 20.

Snow in his letter notified lawmakers that Treasury would begin tapping the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, which Treasury officials said would provide a "few billion" dollars in extra borrowing ability.

Treasury officials also announced that on Friday they had used the $15 billion in the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a reserve that the Treasury secretary has that is normally used to smooth out volatile movements in the value of the dollar in currency markets.

Treasury has also been taking investments out of a $65.3 billion government pension fund known as the G-fund.

Officials have said that once the debt limit is raised, the investments taken out of the pension funds would be replaced and any lost interest payments would be made up. The formal title for the G-fund is the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Democrats hope to use the upcoming congressional debate over raising the debt limit to highlight what they see as the failings of the administration's economic program with its emphasis on sweeping tax cuts.

An actual default on the debt, a situation when the government misses making payments to current bondholders, is a doomsday scenario considered highly unlikely given what it would do to the government's credit rating.

It is expected that after intense debate, Congress will approve an increase in the current $8.18 trillion debt limit by perhaps $781 billion.

The administration has sent Congress a budget that on paper would cut the deficit in half by 2009, the year President Bush leaves office.

But Democrats contend the administration met its deficit-reduction goal only by leaving out major spending items such as the full costs of the Iraq war. They say the deficit will not improve unless Bush abandons his effort to make his first-term tax cuts permanent.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said last week that under President Bush the total of the deficits has increased by $3 trillion, a 40 percent increase from where the national debt _ the total of previous deficits _ stood when Bush took office in January 2001.