The 10 Dumbest Things on Wall Street in 2012

4. Best Buy Strikes Out -- published May 18

It was only a month ago, as all you Dumbest fans surely remember, when the ignominious departure of Best Buy (BBY) CEO Brian Dunn topped our list. At the time we didn't precisely know the "personal conduct" issues that led to his ousting, but we did predict that sooner or later "it will eventually hurtle down our very dumb alley."

Well, now the facts are coming out and boy did we roll a strike. And as it turns out, Dunn isn't the only pin getting toppled.

Best Buy announced Monday that its founder Richard Schulze is stepping down as chairman after an external investigation found out that he knew Dunn was inappropriately cavorting with a female employee, yet still failed to inform the firm's audit committee. Schulze, who has been a fixture at the electronics retailer since 1966, will be replaced by Hatim Tyabji, chairman of Best Buy's audit committee.

"In December, when the conduct of our then-CEO was brought to my attention, I confronted him with the allegations (which he denied), told him his conduct was totally unacceptable and contrary to Best Buy's policies and everything I, and the company, stand for," Schulze said in a statement.

Relax Richard. Now that you are resigning you don't have to stand at all. Frankly, if we were in your shoes, we would be kicking back on the beach right now as opposed to watching less-than-upright citizens like Dunn level your entire life's work.

Speaking of Dunn, he gets to keep his severance package worth about $6.6 million because, according to the report, he did not misuse company funds while he was involved with his underling.

Hey, he may have provided scads of favors to the woman, like procuring her tickets to concerts and sporting events, including one in Las Vegas where he solicited a free ticket for her. And Dunn may have been dial-happy when he used his company cellphone to call her over 200 times during two trips abroad last year.

Nevertheless, Dunn didn't jet her around on the company aircraft so he will be able to walk away with his millions, even though his stupidity caused Schulze to walk away from the company he created.

If that doesn't bowl you over, we don't know what will.

Thanks to some bad apples at Barclays, the world learned a whole bunch about Libor this year.

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