The S&P 500 rose 5.62% last week before the holiday break, which turns out to be the best market week since July of 2009. The Dow Jones index rose 648 points (+5.43%) and NASDAQ rose 6.15%. Each day delivered strong rallies last week, despite CNBC’s extensive coverage of the U.S. debt crisis and the 48-hour general strike in Greece, which was designed to block access to Parliament.

Investors are finally realizing that escalating tensions in Athens and Washington D.C. have virtually no impact on corporate profitability.

The stock market likes to rally around most holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, since folks are typically happy during holiday breaks. The same good feelings were in evidence before the July 4th holiday. Investors seem to be energized about the looming federal government shutdown, since it might actually force our elected leaders to talk to each other rather than just repeat their stale old talking points.

Investors always have options. Today’s crisis in government funding is pushing capital out of Treasury securities and into corporate bonds. The bottom line is that investors are realizing that the private sector is the solution. Another round of strong quarterly sales and earnings reports should continue to lift stocks, especially multi-national stocks, which are like an investment oasis from the growing government crisis.

Now that the stock market has rallied strongly, CNBC is finally being forced to actually talk about the stock market, instead of about Greek funding woes – which have virtually no impact on U.S. earnings. But I am still waiting for the financial news media to tell investors that the S&P 500’s earnings are at a record high, while the S&P 500 index trades at 15% below its 2007 peak. This causes the P/E ratio to shrink to more affordable levels. Company CFOs know this is true, since their corporations are busily selling new bonds, at a rate of up to $60 billion per week (a $3 trillion annual rate). With their new low-interest-rate cash infusion, they can either buy back their outstanding shares or buy up other companies.

At the current rate of stock buybacks, the entire stock market (worth approximately $14 trillion) could disappear within 5-10 years! Of course, that won’t happen. Eventually, the public and most institutional investors will catch on to this trend toward P/E compression. Then, buyers will flood the market again. This creates a very firm foundation under the stock market, even though there are government crises on the local, state and federal levels, as well as around the world. Eventually, more investors will realize that the private sector is the powerful engine of economic growth.

Clearly, the government is not the solution.