While it may sound goofy, those of us still contributing to our retirement plans should pray for periodic stock market crashes. This thought is an appropriate follow-up to last week's column citing one analyst's work that suggests the possible existence today of a stock market bubble.

A riveting book exposing yet more corporate malfeasance prompted me to recall the Gary Larson cartoon where some clever Indians thought to send flaming arrows into the circle of covered wagons. One pioneer asks another, "Can they DO that?"

With stocks continuing on their tear, I'm reminded of the late '90s, 1999 to be exact, when large cap growth mutual funds had an average return of 60 percent that year. Small cap value funds, by contrast, earned 0.

Participants in 401(k) plans are often reminded that they can "become their own bankers" because one of the investment choices in a retirement plan is a loan back to the employee participant. You pay interest on the loan, but every dime is credited back to your own account.

Emerging markets mutual funds are one of the fund industry's worst performers year to date. At the same time, Citibank attributes this year's 42 percent increase in profits to its exposure and strength in emerging markets like Latin America and Asia. Go figure.

The ever-inventive securities industry has managed to package yet another type of loan into an investment product for small investors. Banks often make loans to large corporations and then syndicate them -- split them up -- and spread them out to other banks and investors to spread the risk. Recently, there have been a number of mutual funds formed to invest in these syndicated packages.

In the wake of a stunning increase in stock market values, this would be a good time to revisit our understanding of business cycles. The Foundation for the Study of Cycles was established in 1941 in an attempt to understand and predict future events in the economy as well as in the stock market.

Today, the foundation keeps track of more than 1,200 cyclical events covering everything from biology to the weather. They are the "go-to" organization for cycle information, with some studies that go back as far as the 1400s.

Here's some good news: Corporate after-tax profits since 1999 have increased from $500 billion to about $1.8 trillion -- almost four times more money. I didn't make that up. It's according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. So what should that mean for stock prices?

Anyone gnashing their teeth because they never got back into what has become a roaring stock market may still have a chance. While the market may have reached all-time highs, I'm like, "Wait. There's more!"

The basis for my chronic optimism this time around starts with the enormous profitability of America's largest companies. Fortune magazine reports that its list of the top 500 largest firms earned $820 billion in 2012, near the all-time record set in 2011. Fifty-three billion dollars of that number was in technology, which bodes well for the Bay Area.

My new "breathalyzer" measuring the alcohol content in my blood stream has been instructive over the past few months as I have been conducting experiments on my metabolism. What prompted me to pop for $60 on this drugstore gadget was the story of the San Francisco socialite who had had two glasses of wine with dinner. Then, as bad luck would have it, she was stopped in one of those random checkpoints. The police impounded her car and she spent the night in jail.