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November 04, 2011 | | STRONGARM Score another victory for Wall Street: Jon Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, had successfully persuaded regulators to allow him to continue to wheel and deal the risky trades that led his financial firm, MF Global, to ruin. According to The New York Times, Corzine personally pressed the feds to scrap plans that would have restricted MF Global from borrowing money from its own customers. Corzine lobbied the five commissioners of Commodity Futures Trading Commission directly. Now, regulators are looking over MF Global's books for $630 million in missing customer funds. SO WHAT? GOP frontrunner Herman Cain is threatening to sue Politico for first reporting about past sexual-harassment claims. "This is likely not over with Politico from a legal perspective," an aide told The Washington Post. Cain's campaign has accused fellow candidate Rick Perry of tipping off the press, but whether or not Perry is behind Cain's sexual-harassment troubles, The Daily Beast's Paul Begala says there's nothing "despicable" about giving reporters a tip about a candidate's impropriety. EUROPE The referendum on the EU bailout may be scuttled, but Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s fate still hangs in the balance. He faces a no-confidence vote in front of Parliament on Friday, where his Socialist party has a tiny two-seat majority. He’s hoping the decision to cancel the referendum will win some rebellious members of his own party back into his corner. The vote on his future is scheduled for midnight Athens time. MARKETS Groupon raised $700 million in its initial public offering Friday, selling 35 million shares at $20 each—above the initial range of $16 to $18 per share. That makes it the largest IPO for an Internet company since Google went public in 2004, raising $1.7 billion. Investors drove up the price in part by putting just a tiny share, or “float,” of the company on the market—just above 5 percent. Groupon will begin trading on NASDAQ Friday under the ticker symbol GRPN. COMPROMISE? Despite incessantly insisting that tax increases will not be included in whatever debt deal the congressional "supercommittee" comes up with, John Boehner announced Thursday that tax revenues will be a part of any coming bipartisan agreement. However, the House speaker clarified, Republican tax concessions will only be made in exchange for serious reforms in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on the Democrats' end. | | 
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