What are some of the most stupid episodes in business this year? Too many to list here but here are my top 10.

1.John Thain's golden commode: Earlier this year, we were appalled by revelations of former Merrill Lynch chief John Thain's spending habits. Thain was ousted by his new boss, Bank of America chief Ken Lewis after he had doled out $4 billion in discretionary year-end bonuses to favored employees just before Bank of America's rescue purchase of failing Merrill went through. Those bonuses amounted to about 10% of Merrill's 2008 losses. As a result, Merrill's new parent company successfully begged the US Government for $20 billion more to complete the deal. But then, the bonuses were in keeping with Thain's outlook. Thain showed himself to be the kind of person who felt he was entitled to every luxury. Hence the revelations about his office redecoration. He spent $1.22 million of company money to make his cubicle prettier. That included $87,000 for a rug, $1400 for a trash can and $35,000 for a "commode with legs."

2. Lady Black and the kulak bankers:Barbara Amiel, the big-spending wife of jailed fraudster Conrad Black, has come out with an extraordinary defense of the discredited bankers. While the rest of the world accepts that bankers created the world's economic crisis, Amiel in one of her columns compared them to the intellectuals targeted by Mao Tse Tung and the kulaks persecuted in Stalin's Russia.

3. The SEC and Madoff: better later than never: In June, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally banned crooked money manager Bernard Madoff from working in the securities industry. The decision only confirmed the SEC's ineptitude. It came several years after the SEC was warned that Madoff was running a Ponzi Scheme; and several months after people lost billions of dollars. By that stage, Madoff was already in jail after pleading guilty to 11 felonies and waiting to be sentenced to 150 years in the slammer.

4. Ryanair's Pee Fee: Airlines around the world are losing billions of dollars and the aviation industry is in deep trouble. As a result, Irish airline Ryanair came up with its appalling solution: charge passengers for using the toilet while flying. Just put a coin in the slot and away you go. And Ryanair wins both ways because it already charges more than other airlines for in-flight food and drink which sends passengers to the toilet.

5. Dubai fools the world: Dubai's ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had a policy for eye-popping development. He wooed investors, resulting in excesses that created a speculative bubble. One of the biggest borrowers was the government's own development vehicle, the conglomerate Dubai World. Taken in by the sheik's smooth tongue, deposed politicians, oil tycoons, movie stars, sports champions and powerful executives all participated in Dubai's real estate bonanza. So did professionals from Europe and Asia who flocked to the emirate, paying for condos and villas before building even started. At the end of this year, Dubai World shook markets with its announcement that it needed to delay payments on part of its $60 billion debt. Stock markets around the world went into gyrations. But the sheik and his government were not going to stand by the company's debts. Indeed, he denied it and never came up with a recovery plan. In a meeting with reporters two months ago, the sheik's answer to a question about Dubai's debt-load was: "I assure you we are all right. ... We are not worried."

6. Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs - on a mission from God: Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein highlighted his absolute arrogance when he told The Times he was "doing God's work". He told The Times: "We're very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle." He went on to admit that there was public outrage about Goldman Sachs but then tried to deflect that by saying he was "doing God's work." This is a bank that paid out $16 billion in bonuses and the public is justifiably outraged because the only reason Goldman was not destroyed in the financial crisis was that it was bailed out by the US Government. Its massive profits and those bonuses due to government aid in the form of access to cheap money. Goldman Sachs is the poster child for the socialization of risk and privatization of profits.

7. GE cooks the books: The Security and Exchange Commission announced that conglomerate GE had cooked the books, boosting its earnings by $785 million and its revenues by $370 million. One of the alleged violations involved GE accounting for sales of locomotives as done deals before they had actually occurred, another involved inflating its earnings by changing the way it recorded sales of commercial aircraft engines' spare parts. GE's accounting shenanigans were compared to Enron's barge's deals.

8. Fritz Henderson - here today, gone tomorrow: Now that was quick. Five months after General Motors' emergence from bankruptcy and eight months after the Obama administration fired his predecessor, Rick Wagoner, GM chief executive, Fritz Henderson, suddenly resigned in a sign of disquiet over the pace of recovery at America's largest motor manufacturer. Directors, led by chairman Ed Whitacre, were not happy with progress in reviving GM's crucial US sales or in transforming the company's ponderous culture. As if anyone could do it quickly. Henderson's daughter went on Facebook and in an expletive ridden rant, made it clear that dad did not resign.

9. The Fake Accounting Standards Board: The Financial Accounting Standards Board showed it should be renamed the Fake Accounting Standards Board when it FASB ruled that companies could use their own judgement in assessing what an asset is worth under fair value. In other words, the accounting rule maker was saying they did not have to use any objective criteria when evaluating assets. They could just make it up. The FASB then allowed banks to stick impaired financial securities into a balance sheet dumping ground called "Other Comprehensive Income". That would sit on the balance sheet but it would not go into the income statement, which means it did not hit the bottom line. In other words, it allowed the banks to artificially inflate their earnings.

10. Grassley and hari-kiri: . Republican Senator Charles Grassley should get the prize for his ability to inflame and make things worse when he suggested AIG executives should either resign or kill themselves because of those bonuses. Grassley said: "The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they'd follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things - resign, or go commit suicide.". Grassley's PR people went into damage control, claiming he was speaking "rhetorically". Someone should have told them that when you are in a hole, you should stop digging.