In other words, there are far worse places to have a bubble if you’re gonna have one.

Daniel

http://stockmarketadvantage.com/the-sp-500-2013-versus-1987/

Maybe Obama / Holder ordered the illegal AP wiretaps. Maybe Obama or Hillary Clinton or the CIA or the KGB or the Men in Black tried to cover up what a policy screw up Libya turned out to be. Maybe the IRS were told to use tax code to punish Obama’s political enemies — by Obama himself, by Senator Schumer, by Max Baucus, or by some little green man from Mars. Maybe Bush appointed the IRS chief, maybe the little green man from Mars did that too.

Who cares? This is like children in the back seat of a car on the family road trip arguing about who hit who first. The dad is going to lose it and pull over the car no matter who hit who first.

I have no evidence either way, but lets assume Obama personally ordered the IRS agents to break the law and target his enemies… the act is still morally and ethically **WRONG**, and the IRS agents knew it. The agents broke the law, violated citizens trust — and need to be sent to prison even if it turns out they were ordered by some politician to target conservatives.

“I was just following orders” has always been considered a crappy excuse in the past … and it is here too. What the IRS agents did was wrong, and they knew it (or they aren’t qualified to be in their jobs in the first place — but I think they knew it was wrong all along).

The IRS agents would not tolerate a citizen cheating on their taxes because an accountant said so, or a company cheating because a CEO said so … so what makes these criminals think they should not be held accountable now?

Of course the IRS agents are guilty. Yes, they need to go to prison. Maybe some politicians should join them, but even if the IRS agents were ordered to break the law — their actions were still illegal.

The Dept of Justice employees are adults. How did any of them make it through law school without hearing about the Watergate affair? Whether Atty General Holder ordered them to make illegal wiretaps of AP reporters or not … the DoJ bureaucrats knew what they were doing was WRONG.

And while I risk being labeled partisan for saying this, I think Obama is to blame for these messes — but not for the reasons the media is giving.

Much as I think Obama is clueless buffoon who made the health system even worse than it was… I have to admit he is but one man and puts his pants on one leg at a time. He can’t know every action that every little bureaucrat is doing at every moment.

But as the leader of the country, Obama sets the tone. That’s on him.

Obama claims ObamaCare is his signature legislation (his own opinion, his own words). But his signature legislation was “passed” into law via a combination of accounting fraud, in-our-face bribery of Congress members, and legal trickery.

Obama wanted his legislation so badly, he didn’t care what tactics were used to jam it into law. Obama looked the other way at all the crimes committed in legislating his signature legislation.

Obama looked the other way when he knew it was WRONG. What message does that send to lowly bureaucrats? What message does that send to aspiring students? What message is he sending to all citizens?

Of course, Obama is hardly the first loser in the White House to cut corners and look the other way. Given their personalities, there is a good chance McCain or Romney would be cutting other corners or looking the other way on some other unethical activity. That doesn’t make Obama’s behavior any less bad.

Even if Bush or Clinton or whomever cut corners first — it would not exonerate Obama. He is the guy in the CEO suite at the moment. He is the guy setting the tone for the government and the country.

And the message he is sending is this: it is OK to lie, cheat, cut corners … break the rules, break the law. “Win” at all costs, even if you have to cheat.

Any coach that tells his/her team to cheat to win would be fired. Why should CEOs of banks or Presidents of nations be held to a lower standard?

Argo Group, AGII has bought in 20+% of the shares in the past 3 years–whereas in your table it shows 36% more shares since 2005….just a data point for your consideration …

Hope you are well