Football fans and "American Idol" devotees can breathe a sigh of relief. Fox and Time Warner Cable have reached a deal in principle that will keep the network on the cable provider after Fox threatened to pull the plug over a fee dispute.

Friday's agreement, which included Bright House Networks, ended a week of public sparring that had some viewers worried they'd miss Friday night's Sugar Bowl, Saturday's Cotton Bowl and Sunday's professional football lineup, as well as an array of other programming.

Also: Cablevision Drops Food, HGTV Networks

Last year was a good one for financial titan Goldman Sachs (GS). Despite the downtrodden economy, Goldman managed to log a stellar performance, which will yield a record bonus payout of $23 billion to its workers. We certainly helped CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his minions with $52 billion in low-cost government financing.

Modern-day private equity got its start back in the 1970s, with the pioneering buyout deals from KKR. By using heavy amounts of debt, the firm was able to arrange large transactions and produce strong returns for investors. Since then, private equity has turned into a massive global asset class. After all, KKR now manages $54.8 billion in assets, with stakes in companies like hospital operator HCA, electronic-payment processor First Data, media outfit Nielsen and Toys "R" Us.

The recession has turned us into a people who brunch. It makes sense that in hard times, a restaurant outing that combines two meals into one would become as hot as jalapeño-cheddar frittata. The latest restaurant traffic numbers reflect the trend, with the number of brunch-goers rising more than 8% in 2009 (through August), while traffic for breakfast, lunch and dinner all collapsed like a botched soufflé, according to the market research firm NPD Group.

I'm sure you've heard the talking heads telling investors "diversification failed" and "buy and hold doesn't work." But here's a scenario you won't hear from them, or from your broker. Say you invested $10,000 at the peak of the market on Oct. 1, 2007, putting 60% in a globally diversified portfolio of low-cost index stock funds and 40% in a low-cost, short term-bond fund that tracked the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate index. Your timing couldn't have been worse. The Dow closed at a record 14,087.

There are stock plays and then there are those rare stocks that you might consider for your child's college fund. I like to call them "stocking-stuffer stocks." Stanley Works (SWK), the tool and hardware maker, is one.

A look back at the last decade shows that not even the Great Depression was so unkind to stocks. That's right: The 2000s are going down as The Worst Decade Ever when it comes to U.S. equity performance.

After a decade marred by a crippling credit crisis, Bernard Madoff's elaborate Ponzi scheme and a stock market crash, here's to a new year and better times ahead. And what could be more encouraging than starting the next 10 years on the right foot with a few resolutions?

Here are several unlikely resolutions for the financial world. Doesn't hurt to dream though.

Economist Paul Krugman has dubbed the last decade "The Big Zero," but it has been less than zero for the average investor. Still, if you dig under the surface a bit, you'll find that some industries grew rapidly during the past ten years. More importantly, many of those industries are expected to be among the fastest growers of the 2010s. If you dig a bit more, some of those fast-growing industries hold significant profit potential for investors -- and I can suggest three stocks that could snag a big share of that potential profit.