Fools were out and about this week in an investing world jampacked with actions and ideas. Here are three articles you might find useful as you decide how to invest your money.

The Man Who Makes More Money Showering Than You Do Per Year
A firefighter spends a whole year on the job to earn $47,000. Hedge fund manager John Paulson earned that much in five minutes last year. President Obama leads the country for an annual paycheck of $400,000. Paulson pulled in that much in about as much time as it takes to bake an apple pie.

"I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with Paulson's pay," wrote Fool contributor Morgan Housel, who created a chart comparing Paulson's investing success with others' salaries. "If he isn't smarter than most people, he's obviously bolder. He's figured out capitalism, and good for him."

You know there's a "but" coming, right? "[B]ut there's something tragic about our best and brightest -- the people who should be engineering airplanes and curing cancer -- choosing instead to trade derivatives and short financial bubbles," Morgan write.

Read the story to add your thoughts to the debate in the comments section.

This Homely Stock Deserves Your Attention
Investing in semiconductor stocks is one way to ride a range of technology success stories. This week, Fool contributor Anders Bylund brought to our attention California-based International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF), which specializes in power-management chips. "[T]his company isn't married to mobile computing the way radio-chip producers are," Anders explained. "It's still a significant end market, but International Rectifier saw its strongest gains in the second quarter from automotive, industrial, and appliance customers."

Anders notes that semiconductor stocks such as RF Micro Devices (Nasdaq: RFMD), Atheros Communications, Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), and Cirrus Logic (Nasdaq: CRUS) get more attention. See the article to benefit from his good sense in pointing investors a bit off the popular path.

One Exciting Opportunity
The Motley Fool Global Gains team is headed to Australia in mid-February to find promising companies in which to invest. "As the world's largest exporter of coal, and its second-largest producer of iron ore, a lot of what Asia needs comes from Down Under," wrote Global Gains advisor Tim Hanson. "Australia is at the heart of a multidecade commodity boom, providing investors with an attractive long-term investment opportunity and currency exposure."

Check out the article to see what Tim had to say about Eastern Star Gas (ESGLY.PK), a small-cap energy company focused on finding and producing coal seam gas in Australia. Tim notes that big companies including CNOOC (NYSE: CEO), ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), PetroChina (NYSE: PTR), Royal Dutch Shell, and BG Group are also interested in this method of extracting gas from the ground.  Enter your email address in the box below to get the Global Gains team's dispatches from Down Under.