Forgive me if I stray slightly, but I could not help thinking about how ironic it would be if someone leaked information as to the whereabouts of Wikileaks founder and "fearless leader" Julian Assange -- who is in hiding!

It would be even more ironic if a CIA operative who had his cover blown by Wikileaks decides what goes around comes around. Let's face it, in its own way Wikileaks has become a rogue nation, so why wouldn't the CIA get involved?

In the mean time, this has probably helped world markets as it has overtaken everything else as the big story of the past 48 hours. In a bizarre way, Assange may have achieved one of his goals by bringing the world closer together, sort of.

This year Wall Street bonuses are looking to hit a new record. Last year, they hit a record of $21.5 billion and I've seen estimates that they'll be up between 10% and 25% in 2006.

One expert, Options Group, estimates that the big winners will be investment bankers and equity underwriters and traders. Driven by a record year in mergers, investment bankers will receive bonuses 20% to 25% higher than in 2005, as will those in equity derivatives sales. The "losers" will be fixed-income proprietary traders, who will earn the same or less than they did in 2005.

This year, the best place for bonus babies is the Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS), which is distributing $16.5 billion worth of bonuses among its 36,000 employees -- up 40% from 2005. While this averages out to $623,418 per full-time employee, a few traders will take home $100 million.

How can any company justify paying so much money to one person? That $100 million bonus is 2,159 times the $46,326 that the median U.S. family earns every year! Do traders really work 2,159 times harder than the average family? Are their lives really 2,159 more stressful? How can any CEO justify paying out so much money?