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.

Dell (DELL) reported results late Thursday, saying its net income dropped 54% in the latest quarter amid signs the company isn't fully benefiting from the computer industry's fledgling recovery. Dell's results missed Wall Street's estimates. Shares fell over 6.5% ahead of the bell.

Goldman Sachs Group's (GS) shareholders finally found a voice. Some of the largest shareholders have asked the company to cut the size of its bonus pool and pass along more of its profits to investors, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

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.

Dear Lloyd:

I read about your kind offer to spend $500 million to help 10,0000 U.S. small businesses by underwriting continuing education courses for them at local colleges and giving money to community-lending institutions for loans. I'm certain this offer is sincere. However, as someone who has tried launch a small business and who has many small-business owners as friends, I can assure you that most of them don't need any community college course to learn how to make money.

No, their needs are far more mundane. They need cheaper health insurance for their employees. They need lower taxes on their revenues. They need more earnings to pay their employees a fair living. They need funds to buy supplies because their credit lines have been eliminated and their vendors are demanding COD payments. In short, they need more money, not more schooling.

Just over 100 years ago, the sociologist Max Weber wrote his seminal book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he portrayed the pursuit of profit as virtuous and described work as a kind of religious duty. The attainment of wealth was seen as the fruit of labor, a blessing from God in return for hard work, piety and frugality.

Weber comes to mind thinking of the recent comment from Goldman Sachs (GS) Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein (pictured) that the world's most successful bank is doing "God's work." It's hard to imagine that $16.7 billion in executive bonuses to millionaire bankers during a crippling recession is what Weber had in mind. In an effort to put its money where Blankfein's God-talk is, Goldman Sachs has announced it will partner with Warren Buffett, the very personification of virtuous capitalism, in a $500 million project to help small businesses.

Hershey Co. (HSY) and Italian chocolate maker Ferrero SpA said they're reviewing their options about making a joint bid for Cadbury Plc. (CBY) after it was approached by Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT). For their potential offer to succeed, it would have to be higher than Kraft's unsolicited offer of 10.3 billion pounds ($17 billion).

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) said it is launching a $500 million small-business assistance program that includes an advisory panel with billionaire investor Warren Buffett. On Tuesday, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein apologized for his firm's role in the credit crisis.

While less than two weeks ago, the Congressional Oversight Panel said that it had found no "significant flaws in Treasury's implementation" of TARP bailout programs, on Tuesday, Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky (pictured) questioned why AIG counterparties were paid 100% of the values of their contracts, costing the U.S. taxpayers $62 billion, most of which may not get repaid. Also on Tuesday, the The Wall Street Journal analyzed enforcement actions filed by federal regulators and found that at least 27 troubled banks got TARP funds even though government officials knew they were in trouble. The Journal estimates this will result in another $5.1 billion in lost taxpayers' money.

These two stories point to $67.1 billion in taxpayers money spent on troubled institutions that may never get paid back. Some consider the AIG payoffs to have been "backdoor bailouts." When you consider who got the AIG payoffs, you too may wonder why the government didn't negotiate discounts. Recipients included Goldman Sachs (GS), Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank (DB), UBS (UBS), Barclays (BCS) and Bank of America (BAC).

There are two sides to every story, and sometimes three, four or five. An audit by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) claims that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York allowed banks to get 100% of the value of complicated financial instruments that they had insured with AIG (AIG). The transactions involved over $60 billion. The full report was issued today.

The inspector general Neil M. Barofsky claims that the Fed "refused to use its considerable leverage" to force major banks to make concessions on the money they were owed as part of their relationships with AIG.

As unemployment soars and consumer credit dries up, some investors have braced for a "new frugality" with battered consumers cutting spending and looking for cheaper goods. But Wall Street is now betting that the fortunes of expensive luxury retailers may actually look much brighter than that of their more cost-conscious peers.

On Monday, the Census Bureau reported October retail sales grew 1.4% -- including autos and restaurants. Against this backdrop comes Goldman Sachs's new, more bullish outlook for the luxury retail sector in particular. The firm upgraded expensive retailers Nordstrom (JWM), Coach (COH), Saks (SKS) and Tiffany (TIF).

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.

Ask any investor, and he'll tell you the best place to enter the market is at the bottom. Buy low and sell high, right? The institutional crowd knows this lesson best, and after a rocky year in traditional financial markets, many are now drawn to what seems to be the market bottom for a more unusual asset class: art. The market for art appears to have a lot of promise, particularly given that the art market has suffered even more than the traditional domain of financiers.

With auction markets showing signs of recovery -- or at least wanting to recover -- capital is surging into funds focusing on these asset classes. In addition to the high net worth investors who have tended to invest in these assets and the specialty funds that operate in these spaces, institutional investors are showing more interest in the world's oldest media sector.

In August, the FDIC reluctantly made it easier for private-equity groups to buy failed banks after the number of problem banks rose to 416 at the end of June. I say reluctantly because the FDIC prefers to sell failed banks to people with a track record in the banking industry. Now there are some new kids on the block creating stiff competition for the the private equity firms -- former bank executives working with Wall Street firms to form "blind pools" to buy failed banks.

That's good news for everyone but the private-equity firms. Not only will former bankers be more attractive as buyers to the FDIC, the private-equity firms expect the blind pools to drive up prices, making the purchase of failed banks less attractive. Even when the FDIC agreed to make it easier for private-equity firms to buy failed banks, it added a caveat to prevent them from quickly flipping the banks: It required investors to maintain a bank's minimum capital levels for three years.

Deposed New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is the latest name to surface in the mad scramble to replace Bank of America Corp. (BAC) chief executive Kenneth Lewis. This would be among the more spectacularly bad ideas in the history of banking.

Corzine -- who told Bloomberg News that he has not spoken with B of A -- is the wrong candidate at the wrong time. Or, as a campaign commercial might put it: "Jon Corzine. Wrong for New Jersey. Wrong for Bank of America."

Bailed out with taxpayer funds just a year ago, major U.S. investment banks may again be gearing up to hand out record bonuses. But as the public outrage builds, authorities seem to be betting that a theatrical crackdown on the hedge fund industry will calm the widespread anger about Wall Street's excesses.

Federal investigators are again widening their investigation into the $1.2 trillion hedge fund industry. Last week, reports surfaced that authorities have gotten a former employee to serve as a cooperating witness and provide information about hedge fund giant SAC Capital Advisors. Richard Choo Beng Lee, who worked at SAC between 1999 and 2004, will tell authorities about transactions by other SAC traders, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Did Goldman Sachs Group (GS) Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein invoke the lord's name in vain when he said Wall Street's most successful bank was doing "God's work?" Experts are divided.

"The question of whether the CEO of Goldman Sachs is doing God's work is at one level a very complex one," says Dr. Andrew Abela, chairman of the Department of Business & Economics at the Catholic University of America. Abela, who is working on a book, Catechism for Business, says, "The vast size of the bank and its extensive influence on markets and on government policy, means that it is operating at all times in a moral minefield."