ba

Wall Street is getting back to normal. How do we know that? One gauge: measuring Wall Street's health is the amount of bonuses bank employees receive.

Here are just a few numbers that reflect how Wall Street is doing:

• Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE GS) set aside $16.7 billion dollars for compensation in 2009, just a few dollars short of the record $16.9 billion set in 2007.
• Each employee at Goldman averages $527,192.00

Can investing and collecting go hand-in-hand? Yes -- especially if you are collecting coins, stock certificates, bank notes, or other rare items of value. Larry Schutts, an expert in investment-related collectibles, will periodically review items of interest from his collection and answer your questions here.

In the summer of 1862, the rising costs of the Civil War prompted the U.S. Congress to enact a broad new tax program. The Revenue Act of 1862 created the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and introduced Americans to their first progressive rate income tax. The Act also required that taxes be paid on documented business transactions and on the sale of certain proprietary retail goods. In order to prove payment, citizens and businesses bought government-issued revenue stamps and applied them to their documents and merchandise. On the documentary side, the inconvenience of dealing with stamps led many to order such paper goods as checks and stock certificates with government-approved stamp designs already printed on them. Retailers, on the other hand, quickly saw the advertising possibilities and were ultimately granted permission to obtain stamps bearing their own private labels.

While I'm chasing value, General Electric (NYSE: GE) is chasing revenue from water projects. It may not amount to much now, but GE is betting it will be huge some day and it has been working towards this goal for many years.

Although GE had estimated 2009 revenue of $2.5 billion from the water business, that is only a meager 1.6% of the $156 billion in worldwide sales generated by its major business divisions that the world's largest maker of jet engines and electricity-producing turbines is expected to generate this year.

Here's a brain teaser for investors: What enabled the United States to ascend to superpower status?

Was it the inherent genetic superiority of Americans? Perhaps it was the nation's work ethic? Was it the vast and ample nature resources, or generally favorably climate? Or perhaps is was the nation's location, bordered by two, large oceans that discouraged many who had thoughts of launching an assault?

Well, while ruling out the first variable (there are a lot of smart people in the states, but no, Americans aren't genetically superior to others), the remaining variables played a role in the nation's ascendancy. But there was another pivotal factor.