Nowhere are the rights of shareholders more disrespected than at publicly traded investment banks. Wall Street amply demonstrates that the interests of mutual funds and other institutional investors are hardly at the top of their list of concerns. These banks still think of themselves as private partnerships, and they see the public's role as providing liquidity to those partners.

This comes to mind in evaluating the complaints of Goldman Sachs Group's (GS) biggest shareholders who want it to pay out more in dividends and less in bonuses. The Wall Street Journal reports that these whiners include AllianceBernstein, a division of State Street (STT); Wellington Management; and Vanguard Group. These shareholders are concerned that Goldman shouldn't be paying 47% of its revenues to its people.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's (D-Mass.) House Financial Services Committee has voted in favor of a proposal to have the Government Accountability Office audit the Federal Reserve, according to the Associated Press. But in my view, auditing the Fed is a thinly veiled first step toward wiping out the Fed, or at least diminishing it through political meddling. And since going back to a world without a properly functioning U.S. central bank is not a realistic option, Fed critics need to think carefully about how we can best regulate the financial markets before they start interfering with one of our most important regulatory institutions.

Before getting into why we shouldn't audit the Fed, a brief word on Rep. Frank. Last year, I appeared on a Boston-area TV program right after Frank. As I was sitting in the green room waiting to go on to the set, I was told I had to evacuate immediately. The reason? Frank wanted the green room for himself -- alone. When Frank slowly made his way onto the set, where I was sitting, he completely ignored me and made it clear he did not want to interact with anyone but the fellow interviewing him. Frank ended up taking up all but five minutes of my allotted time. To be fair, he had many interesting things to say.

Remember Steve Case? He's the guy that used to send you diskettes in the mail to get you to sign up for America Online so you could dial-up to the Internet. Then, in January 2000, he sold AOL to Time Warner (TWX) -- ultimate parent of DailyFinance -- in a $166 billion deal. On Dec. 9, Case's mutated creation, AOL, will become an independent company again.

But Case has moved on since 2000. And Wednesday, he scored a smaller financial victory when he sold Revolution Money to American Express (AXP) for $300 million, according to the The New York Times. Revolution Money lets users pay for things online using a Personal Identification Number with cards that lack names or account numbers. Compared to American Express, it's a lower cost, more secure way to pay.

Are you angry at Goldman Sachs Group (GS) for potentially paying itself $23 billion in bonuses a year after you rescued it from oblivion? If so, would you be willing to let go of that anger in exchange for a vague apology and a $500 million fund to help small businesses? That's the latest Goldman trade on the table.

Before getting into the details of Goldman's offer, let me disclose that two years ago on CNBC I supported what Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein did back in 2007 when he helped hedge Goldman's exposure to subprime mortgages. And a few weeks ago, I told Directorship that Blankfein deserves credit for saving Goldman and for fending off a torrent of ill will directed against it. However, he was tone deaf when he joked about Goldman doing God's work -- most people didn't get the joke.

Warren Buffett is doubling up on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) stock. Why does Warren want Walmart? Obviously, he thinks the price will go up from the $49.81 at which I estimate he bought the shares. But the stock is not cheap -- unless Warren has a better yardstick for measuring Walmart's future earnings growth.

How much Walmart stock does Buffett own? CNNMoney reports that his investing company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), boosted its stake by 90% from 19.9 million in the second quarter to 37.8 million shares in the third quarter. I don't know precisely what price he paid for the 17.9 million additional shares he bought , but Walmart's stock ranged between $47.73 and $51.88 in the third quarter, so let's guess his average cost was halfway in between: $49.81.

A UCLA professor has come up with a wild idea to help prevent the next financial meltdown. He doesn't propose expensive regulations and mechanisms of enforcement on financial actors. Instead, he suggests that swift and decisive punishment of the biggest instigators of financial mayhem could scare the industry straight.

Before getting into the details of his proposal, let me introduce the man and his new book, from which this idea springs. Professor Mark A.R. Kleiman heads UCLA's Drug Policy Analysis Program. Years ago, we shared an apartment while I was working at a summer job in Cambridge, Mass., and he was teaching at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Kleiman also runs a great blog -- The Reality Based Community. I contacted Kleiman a few weeks ago after seeing his new book, When Brute Force Fails, from Princeton University Press, in the window of the Harvard Book Store. Here are his email responses to my questions.

The Paulson who's been most in the news over the last few years has been former Treasury Secretary Hank. But the Paulson who has made the most money during that time is a fellow you've probably never heard of -- another Harvard Business School graduate in the hedge fund industry -- John. Through his Paulson & Co., John Paulson pulled in a $4 billion pay check in 2007 -- that's more than J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods combined.

How did he pull it off? The Wall Street Journal reports that it was Paulson's share of Paulson & Co.'s $20 billion profit from betting on a drop in the subprime mortgage market. He spent $1 billion in 2006 to buy insurance on what he then saw as risky mortgage investments. This was not a surprise to everyone back then -- that December, I had suggested betting against subprime mortgage lender NovaStar Financial (NOVS), and its stock has since fallen more than 99% from $116 to $0.99.

Right now, about $360 billion is sitting in money market funds. But surely some of it must be looking at the 62% rise in the S&P 500 since the March 6 low and wondering whether it should go into stocks. Unfortunately, investors holding that cash have no easy answer: There doesn't appear to be any logical explanation for why stocks go up and down -- even though plenty of theories are advanced every day.

One theory gaining credence these days says the weak dollar is pushing up stocks. If you think this theory has any credence, then you should invest in stocks for at least the next two years. Before getting into why this could make sense, remember that many theories get used to explain stock price movements.

Not all the people who donate to presidential campaigns are good. This fact comes to mind as we find out more about one of George W. Bush's big campaign donors -- a pleasant fellow named Scott Rothstein. Of course, he had plenty of company in goosing Bush's campaign coffers -- recall subprime mortgage lender Ameriquest, which contributed a mere $7.8 million.

But that's old news. Bloomberg News reports that Rothstein is a lawyer who persuaded investors to give him $1 billion, in exchange for which they allegedly got a chance to earn a share of what Rothstein promised would be big legal settlements just a few months after those investors' checks cleared. Apparently, it was a yet another Ponzi scheme -- the legal settlements didn't exist. Federal authorities have sued Rothstein, but he hasn't yet been charged with any crime.

We all know that Wall Street's bad bets nearly brought the financial system to its knees last year. Then U.S. taxpayers footed the bill to bail out Wall Street -- taking on obligations potentially as high as $23.7 trillion, leading to a $1.4 trillion federal deficit, and $12 trillion in national debt. To me that's a kind of reverse-Robin-Hood action. Ironically, a New York City charity called the Robin Hood Foundation, which says it supports 200 poverty-fighting programs, is celebrating Wall Street's expected $140 billion 2009 bonus windfall.

The head of Robin Hood's response to the upcoming record Wall Street bonuses is "Hell yeah!" reports Bloomberg News. The reason for David Saltzman's enthusiasm is that Robin Hood claims it gets more than half of its annual $150 million in donations from the employees of investment banks, brokerage firms and hedge funds.