President Obama meets European Union leaders, shakes hands, puts on some smiles for the press, pretends he doesn't already know what the plan is and shakes his head thoughtfully. Obama says the US is willing to use its magic wand to help put smiles on European faces in time for Christmas. Markets climb despite a warning from several three or four letter acronyms lurking in the shadows and pulling the strings that Europe will slide into a 10 mile deep sink-hole - and Britain will follow - unless each Eurozone country delivers 13.4% of its peasants minced, lightly seasoned, vacuum packed and oven-ready to JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs in under 45 minutes.

Debt Crisis
© Carlos Latuff
This page will automatically invent apocalyptic scenarios of catastrophic proportions every 90 seconds - OFF
- Obama says even though he is married he will spend the night with Mrs Merkel if he has to
- Fitch says US downgrade possible if anyone from the Rothschild family sends an SMS
- IMF's Lagarde says their new technocrats in Italy and Greece are behaving themselves
- Despite having bad dreams, world markets go up a bit and down a little, pretty much like they normally do
- Europe 'in sink-hole' - and could take global economy with it
- JP Morgan says it's tired of waiting for downtrodden European peasants and import its own from China

21.35 It's been a long day of satirical expose of Debt Crisis Live and other such live-blogging. They don't half like creating a drama out of a crisis and it can only mean one thing...

21:25 We're currently in YAMC - Yet Another Manufactured Crisis

21:16 The bottom line is quite simple really. Putting aside all the emotional rhetoric, closed door meetings between heads of state, bankers and ratings agencies, this ongoing crisis is basically a controlled demolition of our living standards. All you really need to ask yourself is, how is this going to affect you and what preparations have you made?
Twitter The FTSE 11 closed up 11.1 points, or 1.1pc, at 1,111.11. The CAC added 2.2pc in Paris and the German DAX rose 3.3pc. The Italian FTSE MIB didn't bother opening.
21:02 As I was saying, the bottom line is that, regardless of who bails out who, whether it's the IMF bailing out the ECB, or vice versa, or the YMCA bailing out both, regardless of who defaults and who doesn't, regardless of which currencies collapse and which survive, the net result on law-abiding taxpaying folk is that the stuff we need is going to cost us increasingly more in terms of time and effort expended in getting the pieces of paper that we exchange for them. More and more of us, our friends and family will struggle even more to find places we can go to give away our souls in exchange for these pieces of, ultimately worthless, paper. The wealth gap between the wealthy elite and the rest of us will widen. Through increasing centralised legislation, regulation and law enforcement, the mechanisms for controlling us revolting poor people will increase even further. This will inevitably lead to more and more people becoming increasingly infuriated that they have to do more for less, while the rich parasites at the top suck all the blood out of the last remaining productivity.

20:57 My sister, Ignita O'Reilly, says the way that this circus of pretend panic has been manufactured is quite brilliant. Lots of satire potential.
quote I love going to the circus me, but these days all I have to do to live the big-top experience is to sit at home in my comfy chair and press the refresh button on my laptop as I follow these live Armageddon blogs. I'm sure it just washes over most people because of the jargon they use to describe what is basically financial terrorism by a few snakes in suits. It's a satirists dream Bro.
20:43 I must confess, that now and again I do actually quite like reading the live blogs in the UK Telegraph and Guardian. I could be wrong, but they seem to have appeared in 2008 and provided hungry British consumers with the latest updates on such events as Big Brother house evictions and who was getting the chop from the talent show X-Factor. As you may have guessed, being of the truth-seeking variety, those particular blogs passed me by, but the armchair-activist in me did enjoy the Live blogs about riots in London last summer.

20:24 The Financial Times keeps everyone on the tips of their toes with The Eurozone Really Has Only Days to Avoid Collapse
quoteThis massive erosion of trust has also destroyed the main plank of the rescue strategy. The European Financial Stability Facility derives its firepower from the guarantees of its shareholders. As the crisis has spread to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, the EFSF itself is affected by the contagious spread of the disease. Unless something very drastic happens, the eurozone could break up very soon.
20.15 Just read a tweet from Angela Merkel herself:

Twitter
@Merkozy21 I ain't budging, not now, not ever, well not until the last minute anyway Eurozone crisis 'toughest hour since World War II', says Merkel

20:12 President Barack Obama met with European Union officials today, and has made a statement with Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council - the group of leaders from the 27 EU nations.

The US President said some calming words as he nibbled on some crudities:
quote It's gonna be just fine, my buddies at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs said so. So chill dudes.
Mr Van Rompuy seemed a bit grumpy, and spent most of the time muttering something about China.

19.10 And this just in from Mr Van Rompuy himself, via Twitter:

Twitter
@euHvR @euHvR Europe&US remain friends. The President is confident his Chicago boy chums know what they're doing
Obama Rompuy
© The TelegraphPresident Obama meets Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy of the EU (facing).

18:33 The disconcerting thing with reading about the economic plight we face is that financial commentators and pundits seem to be deliberately trying to make the subject as convoluted and perplexing as possible. We are led to believe that it is a complex web of competing stakeholders, sovereign nations, private banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, credit default swaps, collateral, credit, debt, high yields, debt, spreads, IMF, OECD and all sorts of confusing terms to muddy the waters.

17:34 It turns out that money used to be just a method of exchanging goods and services that overcomes some of the limitations of bartering systems. Now it's the biggest industry on the planet and the only thing it makes is people homeless.

16.35 I've run out of things to say about the absolute nothingness of what is happening today, but no live economic blog would be complete with out some mention of how house prices are hitting the floor - according to a report that will come out soon.

People seem to forget that it was the banking cartel's loose lending policy that fuelled the sub-prime housing collapse so as to hoover up as many cut price assets as possible.

Foreclosure
© unkonwnIt's not the bankers fault, it's people who live in houses
15:44 It's not just builders who are having a hard time of it - Mobile Phone retailers are also experiencing far weaker trade than last Christmas, despite being able to sell phones to poor people who only use them to play games:

poor folk
© unknownSales of mobile phones in time for Christmas are "along way short of last year"
14:21 The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne opened his Autumn Statement in the House of Commons by telling MPs the Government would "be fine hiding in a cave until it all blows over". He backed up his arguments with statistics from a Government agency that show everything will be OK unless everything isn't.

12:13 All the confusing tripe simply describes the methods in which money is made out of money by private bankers.

11:02 Discussion on FT cover story. Final attempt to save Eurozone?... the Euro has days to live. Great clip of Nigel Farage sticking it to the man - the Euro is dead. Long live the Euro.

10:21 Moneyweek reports the newest Euro coins are made out of really brittle metal
Broken Euro
© Unknown
09.20 A quick look at the bond markets shows that Italy's borrowing costs have hit the roof, despite the willingness of the new technocrat PM from Goldman Sachs to cut public spending to pre-stone-age levels. Some clever chap somewhere in the blogosphere makes a salient point:
quote All of the money (which is debt anyway) is in the hands of greedy bankers who have bought congress. Goldman Sachs has invaded Europe and now the writing is on the wall for any hope of national sovereignty.
06.00 Good morning and welcome back to live coverage of the Economic Armageddon crisis.