US, China Headed to Court Over Credit, Cell Phone Bills

A barely noticed development in this weeks credit meltdown was a lawsuit by the People's Republic of China in a California small claims court naming the USA as defendant seeking damages of $5,000.00 US and return of real property.

The foundation for China's claim is that some time in the past, the USA granted China Most Favored Nation Status and they began a long relationship. During that relationship China claims that the USA failed to pay rent on several occasions as well as ran up $800.00 in shared cell phone charges in the spring of 2007. As well, China claims to be holding "some very large" I.O.U.'s and says it has been unable to convince the USA to exchange anything of any real value for what it calls "worthless paper" in court documents.

China claims that US Treasury bills and other I.O.U.'s given to China in place of real payment have little prospect of being redeemable in exchange for certain household and infrastructure items that China would like to purchase. "I was always telling the USA, 'You have to start working and making something we need, like power plants or computers. But the USA found it more convenient to write checks to other countries to do that work for them. I told them they would overdraft our joint checking account, and in fact, we did incur several overdraft fees which I ended up paying." Those fees totalled $76.50 according to documents filed with the lawsuit.

Further, China claims that it's relationship with the USA has ruined it's credit and that it's relationship with the USA was one-sided with China constantly having to pick up the tab for one expensive item after another. Court papers quote China as saying "I thought we were going to have a long and prosperous relationship, and so, I didn't mind being the hard worker in the family. But now I can see that the USA just used me to provide for it's affluent lifestyle."

Legal experts say that the USA's provision to China of I.O.Us and Treasury Bills could be interpreted as evidence of a promise to pay.

Reached for comment early Saturday morning, a spokesman for the USA said that "China and the USA were never living together and many of the items China gave us were really gifts. We did have a relationship, but we continued to trade with other countries throughout the relationship. We always paid our share of the rent, and as for the gifts, many of those countries know what we are like, and they know that even when we promise to pay them back, we don't really mean it. As for the cell phone bill, there is no way we ran up a cell phone bill of $800.00 this past spring, no way, they would have to show us the phone records."

The USA admitted that "some of the overdraft fees on the checking account may be ours, but we are not so good with numbers or record keeping". The US said they would be responding with documents in court to support their position, if they still can find them.