One of the best financial writers going today must be Ben Stein. He is also, I think, one of the smartest people in America.

Stein is a lawyer, writer, economist, and actor. Heck, he's even written speeches for Richard Nixon, and Win Ben Stein's Money was one of the few game shows that was actually relatively enjoyable to watch. He writes a column for Yahoo! finance and another column for the New York Times called Everybody's Business. His December column Success Is All in a Day's Work is something that I urge you to give to every single young person you know.

Stein also appeared recently on CBS Sunday morning with a message of calm for jittery investors:

The economy is still very strong. The most cagey players on Wall Street, like Goldman Sachs, are now trying to buy -- not sell -- as much distressed merchandise in the mortgage area as they can. This is a good clue about where the smart money is going.

You can panic if you enjoy being panicky. But this will all blow over and the people who buy now, in due time, will be glad they did.

I hope Ben Stein is right, and I think he is.

In the never-ending discussion about whether hedge fund managers earn their keep, who better to consult than... a former Richard Nixon speechwriter? Today's New York Times featured an insightful column by Ben Stein entitled "The Hedge fund kings are rich, but will they be noble?" In the piece, Stein compared the infamous "2 and 20" compensation arrangement of hedge fund mangers (2% of net assets plus 20% of any return over a benchmark) with Warren Buffett's salary of $100,000 with no bonus. Stein also questioned whether these hedgehogs really contribute anything to society, saying "...their social utility to the nation and to the world is hard to see when compared with the social utility conferred by an Andrew Carnegie, an Andrew Mellon, a Henry Ford or a John D. Rockefeller, who genuinely built a nation and a world. Providing liquidity for different kinds of variable-rate mortgages simply does not compare, at least as I view it."

The pithy wording of his message aside, I think that Stein may be viewing it far too simplistically. By earning superior returns for themselves and (hopefully) their investors, these managers free up cash which can be put to good use: Warren Buffett recently pledged a substantial amount of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and even the much-maligned Dan Loeb has donated large amounts of money to Prep for Prep, which provides scholarships for inner-city kids to attend elite private schools.

While I agree with many of Stein's observations in the column, I think he may be missing one of the cardinal rules of economics: Adam Smith's invisible hand, which states that individuals create the greatest benefit for society through the selfish pursuit of personal gain.