Due to iBankCoin’s own @Woodshedder being both an ardent political conservative/libertarian and St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, President Obama has sought and carried out revenge. 

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Was President Barack Obama too busy watching the “Operation Repo” marathon or something else last Friday night?

When KMOX host Charlie Brennan asked now-retired St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa how the traditional call of congratulations from the White House went, La Russa suddenly realized that…it never happened.

“That’s a good point, I hadn’t really even thought about that,” replied a surprised-sounding La Russa, who can be forgiven for having a few other things on his mind over the past week.  “As we were getting into the World Series we had a call from the White House to make sure they had the correct number for my office.”

But as the wild, champagne-drenched celebration of the team’s 11th World Series title was going on in the locker room, that phone never rang.

“We never did get a call,” La Russa said.

And all this despite the fact that the First Lady, Michelle Obama, was in town for Game 1 of the World Series.

“Very impressive, too.” La Russa recalled of his meeting with the First Lady.

Obama didn’t immediately phone last year’s World Series champions, either. But the San Francisco Giants did hear from him eventually:

And the President also hosted the Giants at the White House this summer, where he congratulated them personally.

Whether or not President Obama picks up the phone, or invites him and his team to Washington, TLR doesn’t seem too worried about the apparent slip in postgame protocol.

He’s packing up his things and getting ready to “head west” for the next phase of his life.

La Russa will vacate his office at Busch Stadium as of Friday.

He’s contemplating his next step, which could be buying a minor league ballclub, writing his memoirs, or simply pursuing one of his passions…reading.

He’s currently checking out “The Affair” by Lee Child.

La Russa also said that if asked, he would come back to manage the National League squad during next summer’s All-Star Game, which he earned by guiding the Cardinals to the NL pennant.

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Warren Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc reported a smaller third-quarter profit on Friday after losing more than $2 billion on derivatives related to stock market performance.

That was nearly three times what Berkshire lost on the same instruments a year ago. Buffett has sharply criticized derivatives in general, but has said these particular contracts were safe and would ultimately be lucrative.

But Berkshire was hurt, like many other insurance companies in particular, by sharp declines in a broad range of market values. In a quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire said the indexes covered by the contracts fell anywhere from 11 percent to 23 percent in the quarter.

“It’s a noneconomic event,” said David Rolfe, chief investment officer of Wedgewood Partners, which has about $900 million under management and has held Berkshire shares for about 13 years. “Operating (was) in-line to terrific, the derivatives always need explaining.”

Berkshire reported a net profit of $2.28 billion, or $1,380 per Class A share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $2.99 billion, or $1,814 per share.

Cash at the end of the quarter was $34.78 billion, down from $47.89 billion at the end of June. During the third quarter Berkshire funded the purchase of chemical maker Lubrizol and a $5 billion investment in Bank of America Corp, which accounted for the decline.

OPERATING PROFITS RISE

Operating income rose across segments, except for the company’s finance business, where it fell slightly.

Profits in the insurance business rose as a rebound in reinsurance results offset sharp declines at auto insurer Geico. The reinsurance unit benefited from a reduction in liabilities related to a contract with one unnamed company, while Geico’s profits fell on higher catastrophe losses.

Earnings were also nearly 10 percent higher at Berkshire’s next-biggest unit, the Burlington Northern railroad, as revenue per car rose by double digits.

Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy utility business saw earnings rise more than 10 percent as well. Profits rose sharply in the manufacturing, service and retailing group due to growth at the industrial businesses of the mini-conglomerate Marmon, offsetting ongoing weakness in housing-related units.

Last month, Buffett said he expected record profits this year for Burlington Northern, MidAmerican, manufacturer Iscar and for the Marmon companies.

But at the same time he said Berkshire’s housing-related businesses were doing as poorly as at any point during the financial crisis.

Book value rose to $96,876 per Class A share. Berkshire recently launched a share buyback program, its first ever, with an upper price limit set at 110 percent of book value.

That would suggest a ceiling of roughly $106,560, whereas Class A shares closed at $115,806 on Friday. Berkshire indicated it bought back about $18 million in stock during the third quarter.

“I think Buffett could have spent more on Cherry Coke than he did on shares,” said Wedgewood’s Rolfe, in a nod to the 81-year-old investor’s favorite beverage.

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Apparently Vinny Guadagnino, the big-dicked guido from Jersey Shore, the greatest sociological experiment of our time, was a guest speaker at a Columbia sociology class yesterday. And it sounds like the students weren’t too happy about it.

Vinny got up and spoke about bullying inProfessor Diane Vaughn’s “Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster” class. I mean if it weren’t for those three things, there wouldn’t even be a Jersey Shore. Vinny was invited by a student of the class who’s also an intern at Do Something, the anti-bullying organization that Vinny works with on the regular. He speaks loudly and, uh, carries a big stick.

TMZ says one student asked, “What gives you, as a cast member of Jersey Shore, the right to interrupt this class and then lecture us on setting a good example?”

That’s a very good question, but I have an answer. Didn’t you hear that Jersey Shore is now a suitable topic for academic debate? Just ask the New York Times which covered the Jersey Shore Studies conference last Friday at the University of Chicago. Not only did I attend, but I presented as well. And I spent the entire day talking about Vinny, Snooki, Deena, and race, gender, class, and sexual politics. Pick up the Foucault, everyone, and throw it at your TV screen, because if you’re not applying it to Jersey Shore then you are not on the cutting edge of academia. That said, I have a whole academic presentation (which the Timescalled insightful and entertaining) all set to go entitled “Stereotype, Authenticity, and the Warped Reality of the Jersey Shore” and I’m willing to travel to Columbia or any other university that will have me. You’re not going to be the only one to get an honorary PhD out of this show, Vinny.

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Showing a growing frustration with the the Obama administration, congressional Republicans on Thursday authorized their second subpoena this week, demanding White House documents related to failed solar technology company Solyndra.

By a 14-9 party-line vote the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee authorized issuing a subpoena for any White House documents related to Solyndra, which received renewable energy loan guarantees under President Obama’s stimulus program. The request for documents could include details of the president’s own travel and communications.

Democrats said it was “unprecedented” to subpoena documents from the president’s executive office like this, but Republicans said they’ve run out of patience with White House “stalling.”

“We simply cannot allow the executive branch at its highest levels to pick and choose what they will produce, or whether they will produce anything at all,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who runs the investigative panel.

Thursday’s subpoena came just a day after the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee voted along party lines to authorize a subpoena for Homeland Security records related to illegal immigrants the department has declined to pursue deportation cases against.

**FILE** An auction sign is shown outside the Fremont, Calif., headquarters for bankrupt solar company Solyndra headquarters on Oct. 31, 2011, before the auction on the following day. Solyndra received a $500 million loan guarantee from the government before filing for bankruptcy in September. (Associated Press)

Together they mark an escalation as Republicans have become increasingly aggressive in pushing back against what they see as administration stonewalling of oversight by the new GOPmajority in the House.

In each case, the vote only authorizes a subpoena. It’s up to the chairmen of the full committees to actually issue them.

Democrats said both votes were premature. They pointed to ongoing discussions between Homeland Security and the Judiciary Committee on the one hand, and between theWhite House and the Energy and Commerce Committee on the other, as evidence the administration is acting in good faith.

“The White House repeatedly said they had turned over documents and they were willing to turn over more documents,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, the ranking Democrat on the investigations panel.

She also said the administration has already turned over tens of thousands of documents.

Each side now argues the other is acting in bad faith.

Republicans point to a lengthy effort to get documents, and said it is only when the committee begins to threaten subpoenas that things shake loose.

Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Republican and chairman of the full committee, said several new boxes of documents were released to the press Wednesday night even before they were turned over to thecommittee. Those documents reportedly show the Obama administration mulled bailing Solyndra out just days before the solar panel manufacturer collapsed.

Democrats said they support legitimate requests for information and back the House’s right to investigate the administration. But they said the request for all potential Solyndra communications was a broad fishing expedition, and accused the GOP of short-circuiting usual negotiations.

“Apparently what the committee really wants is a confrontation with the president,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the top Democrat on the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Federal Reserve officials sharply downgraded their forecasts for economic growth and jobs on Wednesday, expecting a sluggish recovery and high unemployment for years to come.

In releasing their projections for how the economy will perform in the years ahead, the 17 top officials of the central bank project that the jobless rate, 9.1 percent in September, will fall only to 8.5 to 8.7 percent by the final months of 2012. In June, the last time they released projections, they thought the unemployment rate would descend to around 8 percent.

They envision a very slow decline in unemployment beyond that, with the jobless rate falling to the 6.8 to 7.7 percent range by the end of 2014. That is still well above the 5.2 to 6 percent range that they view as the longer run jobless rate.

The Fed officials predict a lackluster 2.5 to 2.9 percent pace growth in gross domestic product next year. That is not much higher than what they view as the economy’s longer run potential growth rate, and is not enough to repair the economy quickly. In June, they thought 2012 GDP growth would be in the 3.3 to 3.7 percent range.

The forecast was released a couple of hours after the central bank announced that it would not take new action to pump money into the economy, assessing that economic growth had “strengthened somewhat” in recent months.

Some Fed officials had argued for the central bank to take further action to pump up growth, such as beginning new purchases of mortgage-related securities to try to lower interest rates and support the housing market. But after two meetings at which the central bank took steps to ease monetary policy, Fed officials elected to stand pat.

One official, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans, opposed the decision, arguing that the Fed should have taken more action to help the economy. While dissents in the opposite direction–arguing for less aggressive policy–have been common in recent years, it was the first time in four years that an official has dissented in favor of doing more.

Later in the day, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke began a news conference by recapping the forecast and then took questions from reporters. The first noted the criticism that Republican political leaders have lobbed at the Fed over its monetary policy decisions. “It’s very important” he responded, that the Fed — as an independent body — be free of political influence. In addressing the concerns that Republicans have raised about an increase in inflation, Bernanke noted that “inflation has averaged 2 percent,” the Fed’s target rate. “Where we are falling short,” he said, “is on the unemployment side.”

The leaders of the central bank likely also spent much of the two-day meeting discussing how they communicate their expectations and goals for the economy. There was no immediate announcement Wednesday of changes to those strategies.

The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee saw the economic situation as being slightly better than they had at their September meeting, however, saying that “economic growth strengthened somewhat in the third quarter, reflecting in part a reversal of the temporary factors that had weighed on growth earlier in the year.”

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the July through September quarter, the Commerce Department said last week.

But the Fed’s policy statement was hardly ebullient in its description of the economy. “Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labor market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated,” the statement said, and “the housing sector remains depressed.”

Evans has argued for a variety of more aggressive steps to try to strengthen the economy and reduce unemployment, but had not previously dissented from a Fed action. The last time an official voted against policy in the “dovish” direction, favoring easier monetary policy, was Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren in December 2007.

At the last two Fed meetings, three policymakers dissented in the opposite direction, worried the Fed’s monetary policy was doing too much to boost growth and risked inflation. None did so at this meeting.

SOURCE 

Groupon Inc could price shares in its initial public offering $1 or $2 above the current range of $16 to $18 per share, according to two investors who said they spoke with the lead underwriters on Wednesday.

Groupon is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell 30 million shares in the IPO, equivalent to a 4.7 percent stake. Books are expected to close later on Wednesday afternoon, with trading on the Nasdaq to begin on Friday.

If the IPO prices at $19 per share, that would value Groupon at $12.02 billion. If it prices at $20 per share, that would value the company at $12.7 billion.

No further information was immediately available. A spokesman for Groupon declined comment, as did a spokesman for lead underwriter Morgan Stanley. The other leads, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, were not immediately available for comment.

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•  Severity of Financial Crisis and Housing Slump Forced Downward Revision in Economic Outlook
• Job of Federal Reserve to Stay Out Of Political Debates
• Fed Has Been Aggressive

The night before MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MF) posted its biggest quarterly loss, triggering a 48 percent stock plunge, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jon Corzine appeared at a steak dinner at New York’s Helmsley Park Lane Hotel for a speech to a group of bankers and traders.

“There was no sense at all that there was impending doom,” Kenneth Polcari, a managing director of ICAP Corporates, said of Corzine’s Oct. 24 address to the National Organization of Investment Professionals. “He gave a spectacular speech” about his decades at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), life as a U.S. senator and New Jersey governor and his return to the private sector. “He’s had a full life, up until now.”

Corzine, 64, excused himself before the main course was served, saying he had to prepare for an earnings call the next day, said David Shields, vice chairman of New York-based brokerage Wellington Shields & Co. and a former chairman of the organization. The group seeks to foster “a favorable regulatory environment,” according to its website.

Timothy Mahoney, CEO of New York-based Bids Trading LP, said Corzine’s speech was “delightful.”

The next day, MF Global reported a $191.6 million net loss tied to its $6.3 billion wager on European sovereign debt. On Oct. 27, after the company’s bonds dropped to 63.75 cents on the dollar, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings cut the firm to below investment grade, or junk. Unable to find a buyer, the company filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, the first major U.S. casualty of the European debt crisis.

‘Serve the Public’

At least two dozen U.S. lawmakers and regulators, including Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt have addressed the group, according to its website.

“There are many people in the group that do lobby and talk to regulators,” Shields said. “You talk to regulators, you talk to lawmakers and you try to get the points forward, things that will help the marketplace, that will serve the public.”

The group’s board includes head traders at firms such as Waddell & Reed Financial Inc., whose futures trade triggered the flash crash of May 6, 2010, according to a study by the SEC and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Its members’ firms “trade approximately 70 percent of the institutional volume transacted daily in the New York and Nasdaq markets,” according to the website.

‘Difficult’ Day

The group’s current chairman, Dan Hannafin of Boston-based investment manager Wellington Management Co., declined to comment on the dinner. Corzine and Diana DeSocio, an MF Global spokeswoman, didn’t reply to an e-mailed request for comment.

Mahoney said he appreciated Corzine’s ability “to compartmentalize” and speak engagingly last week. Mahoney’s firm, Bids, runs a private trading venue known as a dark pool, and is a joint venture of banks including Goldman Sachs.

Before the speech, Moody’s cut MF Global’s credit ratings to the lowest investment grade. Polcari said there was one reference to Corzine’s “difficult” day.

While he was “cordial” and “positive,” the MF Global chief lacked his typical “sharp bounce,” Shields said. Corzine is “a member of the community,” and could be invited back after the bankruptcy, he said. “People go through bad times.”

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Press Release

CAMDEN, NJ — The FBI says a financial fraud case shows that mobsters are moving “from the back alleys to the boardrooms.”

Reputed mobsters, including the son former Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo D. “Little Nicky” Scarfo, were charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Five lawyers and an accountant were charged along with Nicodemo S. Scarfo.

Federal authorities say the group took over FirstPlus Financial Group, an Irving, Texas mortgage company, had it buy shell companies they ran and took the money out.

Authorities say the scheme brought them $12 million between 2007 and 2008.

One of the reputed mobsters’ purchases with the money: A yacht named “Priceless.”

FBI Special Agent Michael Ward says the allegations show organized crime has evolved.

Scarfo Jr. is due in a Camden federal court Tuesday afternoon.

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The Spartanburg County Sheriff is known for speaking his mind, and at a news conference on Monday, he didn’t hold back his anger and frustration after a woman was attacked in a park over the weekend.

Investigators said 46-year-old Walter Lance grabbed a woman who was walking her dog in Milliken Park on Sunday afternoon. They said Lance choked the woman, made her take off her clothing and tried to rape her. (Full Story)

Lance is in custody and was denied bond on Monday.

Sheriff Chuck Wright opened his news conference by saying, “Our form of justice is not making it.”

He said, “Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it.”

Wright said Lance has had more than 20 charges dating back to 1983.

Wright said Lance has been in jail more often than he has, and he runs the jail, and he said Lance gets out easier. Wright punctuated it by saying, “And I’m aggravated.”

He said he doesn’t believe every person needs to be kept in jail, but he said, “I don’t think this animal deserves to be out in our society, walking alongside our women.”

Wright said,”Liberals call me and tell me the chain-gang form of justice isn’t working. Well, let me inform you, your form of justice isn’t working either.”

He said Lance should not have had the right or opportunity to “violate a good, upstanding woman.”

“This is a horrific crime,” Wright said. “Her life was threatened so many times.”

Walter Lance was denied bond.

He said Lance “doesn’t fight police or men folk — he just goes after women.” He said Lance is not married because, “No woman can stay married to him because he beats them down too much.”

Wright said, “It’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by. That would fix it.” He said people are tired of doing the right thing and criminals getting away with their actions.

He said several times, “I want you to get a concealed weapons permit.”

At one point, Wright held up a fanny pack and said, “They make this right here where you can conceal a small pistol in them. They got one called The Judge that shoots a .45 or a .410 shell. You ain’t got to be accurate; you just have to get close.”

Wright said, “I’m tired of looking at victims saying, ‘There’s life after this’ … I’m tired of saying, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t keep them in jail.'”

Wright said in his view, gun control is, “Is when you can get your barrel back on the target quick. That’s gun control.”

Milliken Park

Wright said the attack is not the fault of Millken Park. He said, “It’s a nice place for families.”

He said officers patrol the area all the time and respond to various calls there. He said, “Don’t blame anyone for having an animal on their property … We can’t get it all.”

He encouraged women to walk in groups, and he ended by saying again, “I want you to get a concealed weapons permit. Don’t get Mace. Get a firearm.”

And then he said, “I think I better stop before I get sanctioned.”
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