Where is WeiWei? © fintag

News comments:
So the USA is closing down for a bit.

Personally I am more concerned about the whereabouts of Ai Weiwei. China is a country we all depend on but it has no concept of human rights. The man is an artist and I hope he starts twittering soon.

Of course if I was an American citizen, my concerns would be more immediate like will I have electricity and water at the weekend? Obama's diplomacy and stubbornness is showing through and its no coincidence gold is running away again.

I have spent 2 hours reading about the potential shut down and don't understand it. For a world superpower it does have odd processes. Why doesn't Obama get Bernanke to print some more dollars?

Today's shorts:
USA takes a short break (guardian)

Ai Weiwei is missing (telegraph)

UK to bail out the world (telegraph)

Today's longs:
Finbar Taggit favourite to win CityAM award (cityam)

1 in 7 chance Euro splits (telegraph)

Gossip:
Obama to hand over his Amex card to the Republicans.