The College Boost: Grads Still Outearn Nongrads | St. Louis Fed

This is Part I of a three-part series from the Fed. A little more cheery than Part II, which I posted yesterday. I can't wait for Part III to see their solutions.

On average, families headed by someone with a four-year college degree have 69 percent more income and 201 percent more wealth than families without a degree. The gaps between nongrads and those with a postgraduate degree are even larger.

I fear they are going to bang the drums for equal funding for all school districts nationwide. It's all these socialists and Marxists know. They fail to realize and refuse to accept that even if you do that -- and there will be unintended/unforeseen consequences to doing that -- the race will still go to the swiftest and the fight to the strongest. That's the way to bet. 

from the St. Louis Fed:

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/july/college-boost-grads-outearn-nongrads

The College Boost: Grads Still Outearn Nongrads

Monday, July 16, 2018

By William Emmons, Lead Economist; Ana Hernández Kent, Policy Analyst; and Lowell Ricketts, Lead Analyst, Center for Household Financial Stability

This is the first post in a series on the financial returns of college degrees.

A college degree has long been associated with a laundry list of positive outcomes:

• Higher income and wealth
• Better health
• A higher likelihood of being a homeowner
• A higher likelihood of being partnered (married or cohabitating)
• A lower risk of falling behind on loan payments

In response, more and more Americans are pursuing—and earning—a bachelor’s degree. In 1989, about 23 percent of families were headed by someone with a four-year college degree or higher. By 2016, the share had reached 34 percent.

More individuals are continuing their schooling beyond the traditional four-year degree as well. Families headed by someone with a postgraduate degree (such as a master’s degree or Ph.D.) rose from almost 9 percent of all families in 1989 to about 13 percent in 2016.

This remarkable surge in highly educated individuals begs the question: How have the financial returns (expected earnings and wealth) of college degrees fared over time?

The Average Financial Returns to a College Degree

Previous work by our Center for Household Financial Stability has long corroborated the traditional wisdom that a college degree is associated with higher expected earnings and wealth.1 For this analysis, we typically used the Survey of Consumer Finances, often considered the gold standard of data on household balance sheets (asset, debt and income).

When evaluating the financial payoff to a college education, it is useful to ask: How much additional income and wealth does a college-educated family have beyond that of a family that doesn’t hold a college degree?

Income Differences

Pooling all available data (47,776 families), we found that the average family with a four-year degree (grads) earned approximately 69 percent more than the average family without a degree (nongrads). The average family with a postgraduate degree (postgrads) earned twice as much as their nongrad counterpart. Importantly, these estimates controlled for the age of the family, so we were comparing outcomes at similar stages of life.

Wealth Differences

What about wealth? College graduates—both grads and postgrads—accumulated much higher amounts of wealth over their lifetime than nongrads. On average, grad families accumulated 201 percent more, while postgrad families accumulated 242 percent more than their nongrad peers.

These boosts are remarkable, and it’s clear why going to college is such an imperative for individuals and families across the U.S. However, these average returns mask a considerably wide range of outcomes. How do these outcomes vary when considering the race and ethnicity as well as birth decade of these families? That will be the focus of the next post in this series.

Notes and References

1 For example, see Emmons, William R.; and Noeth, Bryan J. “Education and Wealth.” The Demographics of Wealth, Essay No. 2, May 2015.

Additional Resources

• Center for Household Financial Stability
• The Demographics of Wealth: Education and Wealth
• On the Economy: Income and Wealth Gaps: College Grads vs. Nongrads

The College Boost: Is the Return on a Degree Fading? | St. Louis Fed

I'm sure it's not the Feds fault, right?

On average, black college graduates born in the 1980s have little or no additional wealth above their counterparts without a degree. This is true for postgraduate degrees as well.

Get the Fed out of education and watch results go back to where they were before they put their hands on it.

But no!!  We'll continue to ask the arsonists to put out the fire. It appears we've definitely devalued or diminished, but not quite destroyed the value of an education in this country. God Bless America!!


from StLouisFed.org
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/july/college-boost-return-degree-fading

The College Boost: Is the Return on a Degree Fading?

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

This is the second post in a series on the financial returns of college degrees.By William Emmons, Lead Economist; Ana Hernández Kent, Policy Analyst; and Lowell Ricketts, Lead Analyst, Center for Household Financial Stability

Our May research symposium, “Is College Still Worth It: Looking Back and Looking Ahead,” identified how the returns to a college degree have changed over time and how those returns can be boosted going forward.

For our Center’s research contribution, we focused on how the financial returns to college have changed across generations. We concentrated on income and wealth outcomes for college graduates born in six decades:1

• 1930s
• 1940s
• 1950s
• 1960s
• 1970s
• 1980s

Among racial and ethnic groups, we had a large enough sample to break out our results for non-Hispanic white families and African-American or black families. Similar to the first post in this series, we looked at the boost to income and wealth associated with both four-year (grads) and postgraduate (postgrads) college degrees.

Expected Boost to Income Remains Strong

The figure below shows that expected incomes among grad families of either race have largely held steady across birth cohorts, with the exception of white grads born in the 1980s.

Certainly, the returns were highest among older generations. By our measure, the 1930s generation benefited marvelously from earning a four-year degree. Incomes of grads born in the ‘30s were 72 percent and 109 percent higher than their nongrad peers for white and black families, respectively.

However, given statistical uncertainty or “noise,” we can’t definitively say that the incomes of grads born in the ‘30s were meaningfully higher than grads born in the ‘40s through ‘70s. This tells us that the expected boost to earnings associated with a four-year degree remains largely unchanged over time.

We can say that for white grads born in the ‘80s, their incomes were meaningfully lower than those of previous generations. However, it’s important to note that even the ‘80s grads received a sizable boost to their income. Thus, it appears that grad families of either race, born in any decade, reaped sizable rewards in the labor market.

What about postgraduate degrees? The next figure offers a similar look at the income boost among these highly educated families.

Expected earnings associated with a postgraduate degree have declined somewhat over time among white families. Returns peaked at 108 percent higher income for postgrad families born in the '30s and gradually shifted down to 54 percent for the postgrads born in the '80s.

Among black postgrads, the earnings boost is considerably more volatile across generations. After looking at the statistical noise related to these estimates, we can’t say that the boost to black postgrad income has meaningfully changed over time.

Again, the '80s are a peculiar decade: Similar to their four-year degree counterparts, white postgrads born in the '80s have a lowest income boost than those born in the previous five decades.

The Wealth Advantage Is Falling

The majority of conversations involving the return to a college degree talk about what graduates earn in the job market following school. This is certainly important, and the evidence suggests that graduates continue to have superior incomes over their lifetime.

What is often obscured is how those graduates accumulate wealth over their lifetime. This is an important difference: Research has shown that assets—financial (such as stocks) and nonfinancial (such as a home)—are profoundly important for both financial security and upward mobility.

If wealth is so important, why is it left out of the conversation? Reliable and nationally representative household balance sheet data are notoriously hard to come by. It is precisely this reason that the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is such a valuable resource. Using SCF data, we found that the boost to wealth accumulation associated with college has fallen across generations.

The wealth advantages afforded grad families, white and black, are shown in the figure below.

A similar trend emerges: Grad families born in previous generations received a much greater boost to wealth accumulation than their nongrad peers. White and black grads born in the ‘30s accumulated 247 percent and 509 percent more wealth, respectively. This compares with 42 percent and 6 percent more wealth for white and black grads born in the ‘80s.

Black graduates born in the ‘70s also accumulated on average a historically low amount of wealth (18 percent) above their nongrad peers. Disturbingly, given the statistical uncertainty around our estimate for the wealth boost among black grads born in the ‘70s and ‘80s, we can’t say for certain that there even is a wealth advantage to a college degree for the average black family.

The fortunes of families holding postgraduate degrees are even dimmer by our estimates, as seen in our next figure.

The enormous expected boost to wealth deteriorates rapidly between the ‘50s and ‘80s generations. Among white postgrads, the wealth boost ranged between 403 percent and 276 percent for postgrads born in the ‘30s through ‘60s.

Compare that with those born in the ‘70s and ‘80s, which had 116 percent and 28 percent higher expected wealth than nongrads. The boost estimated for white grads born in the ‘80s is almost negligible after accounting for statistical noise.

The picture is similar for black postgrads, although the decline in the wealth boost starts among postgrads born in the ‘60s. Black postgrads born in the ‘50s accumulated 332 percent more than their nongrad peers. Postgrads born in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s accumulated only 18 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent, respectively, more than their nongrad peers.

All of those estimates were sufficiently noisy that we can’t rule out that they could be zero or even negative. The implication is shocking: Black postgrads born in the 1960s, ‘70 or ‘80s do not have statistically higher wealth than blacks who didn’t graduate from college.

Why have the wealth returns to both a four-year and postgraduate degree fallen so precipitously across birth cohorts while earnings have fared far better? The third and final post in this series will offer some potential explanations.

Notes and References

1 Our sample was too thin among families born before the 1930s and after the 1980s to provide reliable estimates.

Kevin Warsh: Fed policy is 'reverse Robin Hood' - MarketWatch - END THE FED!!

It's a well-known fact that I hate to say I told you so, but we came to the same conclusion about the Fed in October of 2010.

from MarketWatch:
Kevin Warsh: Fed policy is 'reverse Robin Hood' - MarketWatch:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve's easy-money policies are benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor in a "reverse Robin Hood" scenario, said Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors. In an interview on CNBC Thursday, Warsh, who is currently a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, criticized the central bank's current low-rate policies, which he said are nearly as strong as they were during the depths of the crisis. He suggested that normalizing interest rates would help jump-start business investment and speed up economic growth. Warsh said that "We need to get a normal-looking interest-rate curve," adding that the Fed needs to overcome the sense that it's stuck in a zero-rate environment.

'via Blog this'


from The Slav's Blog ( dated 10/8/10 ):
http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2010/10/end-fed-now.html

HAVE THEY BEEN GOOD AT EFFECTIVELY PROMOTING MAXIMUM EMPLOYMENT? NO.


HOW ABOUT STABLE PRICES? NO AGAIN.


Could you stay in your job if you were as incompetent as these guys are? I don't think so.


These guys need to be replaced. Fired. And if they don't like it, take them off in handcuffs or chains. And bring back prisoner torture until they are tried and convicted for their thievery and economic mischief.


Because QE1 was such a rousing success, this week the Fed has let on that they are now considering a round of QE2. The hair of the dog that bit you to cure a hangover. Works every time. Fixes the hangover, does nothing for the underlying alcoholism.


Their twisted economic theory that says we should rob wealth from the poor, the elderly on fixed income, the savers to protect the bankers, Wall Street and the rich via the hidden stealth tax increase that is inflation. They are openly destroying the dollar to prop up asset prices.


But not the assets that the middle class owns, like their homes.


This is like a reversal of the Robin Hood economic theory of robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Bernanke believes the poor and the middle class should pay to protect the financial system. Just like his scum-bag acolytes like Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet.


The guys should all hang together. Literally.


Here is what the Fed has done to the value of the dollar in their 97 years at the helm. A 97% depreciation rate. At that rate, the dollar will not only be WORTH LESS (two words) in three more years, it may become WORTHLESS (one word).

So why does it take a former Fed official four additional years to come to the same patently obvious conclusion? Emphasis on the term "former" I would imagine. Maybe a certain "honor among thieves" type of credo.

The Fed's failure is akin to my major beef with the public school system in that they don't even have a very good track record at doing the things they are supposed to do ( the dual mandate ) and yet they want to expand their reach to screw up other things ( like the stock market, the bond market, commodities, etc.).

Note: The school system's initial mandate is to teach ( primarily the three R's ) and they want to expand the doctrine of In loco parentis way beyond recognition.

---

END THE FED!!!

 "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of  credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most  completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a  Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

Woodrow  Wilson

"The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."

The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.

"I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people."

Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924.

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their  currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of  all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."

Thomas Jefferson

Henry Ford tried to tell us...

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debt."
~Henry Ford

==

SOME CHARTS THAT DOCUMENT THE FAILURE OF THE FED TO ACHIEVE THEIR CONTROL OVER INFLATION AND EMPLOYMENT:

We're #17....in Education

I feel your pain!!!

And the knee-jerk responses / solutions from both sides of the aisle are not doing this generation any justice at all.

Pearson Report Finds US Schools to be Just Average

from educationnews.com

http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/pearson-report-finds-us-schools-to-be-just-average/

A new report by Pearson finds that among the education systems of 40 developed nations around, the world the United States ranks squarely in the middle at #17. Among the countries topping the list are the perennial front-runners South Korea and Finland. In its report, Pearson doesn’t just seek to order the nations based on [...]

This is a great report as far as identifying the issues that have led us to where we are. And like the great Bill Parcells says, "You are what your record says you are". And currently, we are # 17. Middle of the pack amongst comparable nations. Mediocre. The N.Y. Mets of education worldwide. That is unacceptable!!

Lessons in country performance in education

http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/the-report



When a smart guy like Bill Gates cannot make smaller school size (and by extension smaller class sizes) the answer, then that in and of itself won't work. Although his letter on the topic after he gave up the fight is a pretty good outline that folks who are serious about fixing the problem can use to make some real progress.

This is from 2008. And we are still slipping.

Bill Gates - A Forum on Education in America

November 11, 2008
Prepared remarks by Bill Gates, co-chair and trustee

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/speeches-commentary/Pages/bill-gates-2008-education-forum-speech.aspx

Actually some of his wife Melinda's comments (linked) and suggestions were as good or better than Bill's:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/speeches-commentary/Pages/melinda-gates-2008-education-forum-speech.aspx

Our foundation has a vision of a thriving post secondary market of community colleges, four-year colleges, online options, and for-profit institutions that would compete for students on the basis of price, value, and convenience–with a premium paid when a student completes a degree that means something in the workplace.

In the next several years, our work will focus on two-year colleges. These are the schools that enroll the majority of low-income students. Most community colleges have open admission, low tuition rates, and with 1,200 of them around the country, most people live near one. Community colleges have untapped potential for getting students the credentials they need to earn a living wage.

 We will take this cause to business leaders, labor leaders, civil rights leaders, and do everything we can to unify these voices in a call for change. And we’ll keep coming back, again and again, to call for more.

No country has the resources to guarantee a livelihood for people who aren’t willing to work hard. But nothing is more damaging to a country than to have millions of young people with no opportunities. In any society, there will always be some who perform well and others who don’t.

 But in a strong society, those differences are determined by people’s talent and energy and not by the income of their parents. 

That’s why we’re committed to this work—we know of no better way to expand opportunity and make the future brighter for millions of Americans.

Higher pay would work, bit only in combination with removal of lower producing slugs who don't really want to be in the profession. When it is 50 times easier for an M.D. to lose his/her license than it is for a teacher to lose their certificate -- when common-sense indicates the ratio probably should be in the reverse -- then clearly something is wrong with the system. And it needs to be fixed!!!

Time for both sides to put some of their pride and prejudices aside (biases, preconceived notions, whatever) and do what is right for the kids.

http://blog.acton.org/archives/45745-why-cant-we-fire-bad-teachers.html

Timothy Dalrymple wonders whether education reform should be one of the great objectives for American Christians in the twenty-first century. Taking up that cause will require overcoming the intransigence of the teachers’ unions:

Try firing an ineffective teacher.  Roughly 1 in 50 doctors lose their medical license.  Only 1 in 2500 teachers ever lose their teaching credentials.  Process that for a moment.  It’s much easier to become a teacher than a doctor, yet teachers are fifty times less likely than doctors to be removed from the profession.  One of the statistics cited in Waiting for Superman, an extraordinary documentary on the crisis of American public education, is that only 61 out of Illinois’ 876 school districts have attempted to fire even one teacher, and only 38 of those districts were successful.  The tenure system — designed to give the most accomplished university professors the freedom to advance new ideas in their teaching and writing without fear of reprisal from their employers, and gained only after many years and rigorous examination — has become an iron shield protecting ineffective teachers who earned their tenure after two years.  Good teachers are a national treasure.  Bad teachers who refuse to change their ways are leeches on the system who cannot be removed and who miseducate our children into truancy and joblessness.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/11/13/no-backing-down-against-teachers-unions/

from ibtimes.com

US 17th In Global Education Ranking; Finland, South Korea Claim Top Spots: 

A report that accompanied the rankings suggested that promoting a culture that is supportive of education is more important than the amount of money invested.

The report said that the success of Asian nations in the rankings reflects the complex impact each society's attitude toward education has in defining its effectiveness.

“More important than money, say most experts, is the level of support for education within the surrounding culture. Although cultural change is inevitably complex, it can be brought about in order to promote better educational outcomes,” the report said.

The study also underscored the importance of good teachers in improving educational output.

“Having a better [teacher] is statistically linked not only to higher income later in life but to a range of social results, including lower chances of teenage pregnancy and a greater tendency to save for their own retirement,” the report noted.

However, there was no agreed-upon list of traits to define or identify an excellent teacher or recipe for obtaining one, the report said.

In general, the teaching profession commands greater respect in nations with successful education systems than in those that do not. However, higher salaries accomplish little by themselves, according to the report.

The study suggested that countries with a greater choice of schools provided better educational outcomes than those that offered fewer choices of schools.

“For-profit private education is providing students in some of the least-developed areas of the world an alternative to poor state provision and showing the potential benefits of choice and accountability,” the study said, adding that parental pressure on educational institutes for better performance should not be seen as impediments.

'via Blog this'

Free Speech vs Common Sense - SportsLetter

Here goes that slippery slope thing again. And I hear it's such a fallacy (see below), but on the one hand we tolerate the abhorent behavior in the first example demonstrated below and yet the second one is somehow just so intolerable. To a teeny - tiny minoity. Call it the Tyranny of the Minority, the Naked Public Square, the Slippery Slope -- you can call it whatever you want.

What is it going to take to figure out:
--  something is clearly wrong
-- something is just not working out the way we were told
-- we might need to change course before we get really, really lost?

What is it going to take?

from Sports Letter Blog:
Free Speech vs Common Sense - SportsLetter:

"Free Speech vs Common Sense"

A girls high school basketball coach in Matteson, Illinois, resigned as coach after the contents of his "graphic" self-published, self-help book on sex, women and empowerment resulted in him being placed on paid administrative leave from his job as a school guidance counselor pending an investigation.

Some of the "racier" details of Rich Central High School girls varsity basketball coach Bryan Craig's book, "It's Her Fault," were published online Friday by The SouthtownStar.  According to the article, the point of the book "was to give women a 'road map to having the upper hand in a relationship with a man.'"

The SouthtownStar quoted from Craig's book:

“I coach girls basketball, work in an office where I am the only male counselor, and am responsible for roughly 425 high school students a year, about half of whom are females,” Craig wrote. “Suffice it to say, I have spent a considerable amount of time around, and with, the fairer sex.”"

and

“The easiest kill for a man is through the young lady with low self-esteem,” Craig wrote in the book. “Of course some will feel this is taking advantage, and yes it is. The ultimate goal for a man is to do all he can to eventually be able to commit and submit to a woman’s power.”And from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“In some cases, strippers and dancers show the overall dominance a woman can have over a man,” Craig wrote. “Not to say that stripping is what has to be done to truly establish dominance, but these women’s mind set is in the right place in order to meet the true potential of the point of this book.”According to SouthtownStar Rich Township High School District 227 Supt. Donna Simpson had known about the book and its contents for nearly a week but had said that Craig “has his constitutional right to free speech.”

From the Sun-Times:

“Please don’t tell me anymore,” said Rich Township High School District 227 School Board President Betty Owens when told of the book’s racy details by the SouthtownStar ...“It’s distasteful, it’s inappropriate, and it wouldn’t be on my list of things to read,” Owens said.The district now is "investigating" the 44-page book, available on Amazon.  We wonder if the district will buy each board member a copy.

'via Blog this'

Kountze cheerleaders told no Bible verses on signs

from ABC Local:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=8817786

On one side is the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison, Wis.-based nonprofit that challenges any religion in public schools.

"I've never heard of this kind of school problem, this kind of a violation at a public school where students would be expected to run through Bible verses to play football," said the foundation's president, Annie Laurie Gaylor. "It's a new and creative way to work religion into our public schools."

On the other side is the Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based nonprofit law firm that says on its website it is dedicated to "restoring religious liberty across America."

"It's an important and fundamental freedom students have to engage in free speech," said Mike Johnson, senior counsel for the institute. "They are not asking anyone to believe in Christianity or accept the faith. They are just well wishes."

But Tanner Hunt, attorney for the Kountze Independent School District, believes a Supreme Court decision in 2000 that barred prayer at the start of a high school football game sets the precedent.

"This is pretty much a white horse case," Hunt said. "The answer was clear: they must cease and desist."

Logical Fallacy: Slippery Slope

 http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html

Form:

If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too.
Z should not happen.
Therefore, A should not happen, either.

Example:

If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After [a]while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.

Source: Clarence Darrow, The Scopes Trial, Day 2

Analysis

This type is based upon the claim that a controversial type of action will lead inevitably to some admittedly bad type of action. It is the slide from A to Z via the intermediate steps B through Y that is the "slope", and the smallness of each step that makes it "slippery".

This type of argument is by no means invariably fallacious, but the strength of the argument is inversely proportional to the number of steps between A and Z, and directly proportional to the causal strength of the connections between adjacent steps. If there are many intervening steps, and the causal connections between them are weak, or even unknown, then the resulting argument will be very weak, if not downright fallacious.

High school lineman in South Carolina collapses after tackle, dies - ESPNHS

When you see this event and these quotes from last week....

http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2012/09/50-years-of-prayer-stopped-after-school.html

"The principal of Haralson County High School, Topher Byrnes, had similar sentiments as Frank.

 "From a personal standpoint, I understand the importance of prayer," Byrnes said."From a professional standpoint, I understand the importance of keeping church and state separate."

and then this event and these quotes this week...

High school lineman in South Carolina collapses after tackle, dies - ESPNHS:

"The mayor, who ordered flags be flown at half-mast, urged residents "to take a moment and ask God to be with this family, to help them find peace in this chaos, and to help this team deal with the grief and shock of losing a brother."

'via Blog this'

....you have to wonder what it will take to open the eyes of those who promote a Hobbesian vision of the naked public square versus those who promote a more Burkeian vision of society and how we are to live with each other.

The mayor in the second instance had better hope that the God of the Universe he worships won't stop to ask how come the folks couldn't ask for his presence and help before the game and yet they don't hesitate to come to Him only after tragedy strikes. We wouldn't  think too highly of a friend if they treated us in that manner. But I guess we feel like God will forgive us for treating Him like that. We better hope he does, right?

The Naked Public Square can be a real SOB. Be careful what you wish for.

http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/a-strange-new-regime-the-naked-public-square

Thus does the Court reinforce the Hobbesian idea that we are a society of strangers, perhaps of enemies, and it is the chief business of the state to prevent others from interfering with or obliging the Sovereign Self. The result is the atomistic and potentially totalitarian doctrine that society is composed of only two actors, the state and the solitary individual. This is a "civic" religion in the sense of being sponsored by the state, but it is hardly civic in character and consequence.

It is in fact the undoing of the civitas, of the "civil society" of myriad persons, associations, and communities of moral tradition interacting within the bond of civility and mutual respect. The description of the self, of community, and of ultimate meaning that is espoused by the Court is incompatible with Christian and Jewish teaching and, I am confident, with the belief and experience of most Americans. It is, in effect although not in name, another religion. It is in fact the Supreme Court's definition of the "concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." It is, according to the Court, the national creed established by the Constitution.

But if that is the choice people are making, let them understand the ramifications and see the consequences of
the choices, a look into the future so to speak.

Because this is a real slippery slope we traversing, and once we travel down the slope -- slippery slopes being what they are -- it will be very difficult, if not impossible to get back to where we once were.

Campaign 2012: Burke vs. Hobbes?

September 5, 2012

George Weigel

 http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/09/campaign-2012-burke-vs-hobbes

You likely think, gentle reader, that the 2012 presidential race is a contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. That, of course, is true, insofar as the names on our Nov. 6 ballots go. But the 2012 race for the White House is something more, something more profound—something with deeper historical roots in modernity’s wrestling with political power and how that power contributes to the common good. 

This is a contest, to take symbolic reference points, between Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Edmund Burke (1729-1797). 

Both were British subjects. Both had a profound impact on modern political theory. Both knew that religion and politics—Church and state—had been thickly interwoven into the history of the West, although here the deep differences between these two paradigmatic figures begin to sharpen: Hobbes tried to drive religious conviction out of the modern public square, while Burke fashioned a vision of political modernity that drew in part on the rich social pluralism of the Catholic Middle Ages. 

In a Hobbesian world, the only actors of consequence are the state and the individual. In a Burkean world, the institutions of civil society—family, religious congregation, voluntary association, business, trade union and so forth—“mediate” between the individual and the state, and the just state takes care to provide an appropriate legal framework in which those civil-society institutions can flourish. 

In a Hobbesian world, the state—“Leviathan,” in the title of Hobbes’s most famous and influential work—monopolizes power for the sake of protecting individuals from the vicissitudes of a life that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” In a Burkean world, civil society provides a thick layer of mediation—protection, if you will—that cushions the interactions between individuals and life’s challenges. 

A Hobbesian world is a world of contracts and legal relationships, period. A Burkean world is a world in which there are both contracts—the rule of law—and covenants: those more subtly textured human associations (beginning with marriage) by which men and women form bonds of affection, allegiance, and mutual responsibility. 

Catholic political theorists have always had major difficulties with Hobbes, and not simply for his promotion of what we would call, today, the “naked public square”: a public space shorn of religious conviction. Hobbes’s vision of the state is far too cold for the social sensibilities of Catholics, who habitually think of society as organic, not artificial or contrived.

By contrast, Burke’s defense of society’s “small platoons” has numerous affinities with Catholic social doctrine, from Leo XIII through Benedict XVI. John Paul II, for example, was particularly forceful in his defense of the mediating institutions of civil society, describing them in the 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus as schools of freedom: those natural human associations, beginning with the family, where beautiful, willful little tyrants (which is a precise description of every 2-year-old ever born) are transformed into the kind of civil, tolerant adult citizens who can participate in public life through their minds, not just their muscles. 

No American presidential candidate is going to run on an explicitly Hobbesian platform. And the complexities of life in a post-modern world are such that a purely Burkean republic is unlikely anytime soon. The issue here is one of tendencies, orientations, visions of possibility. And at that level, 2012 really is shaping up as a contest between “Hobbes” and “Burke.”

Be careful what you wish for. And choose wisely. Sometimes you just cannot un-ring the bell.

50 years of prayer stopped after school receives letter | wtsp.com

This is the central theme of the movie "Last Ounce of Courage" being played out in real life. Life imitating art.

Maybe it is time to take a stand.

Maybe the local principal in this instance would get more support if he wasn't so intolerant of peoples beliefs.

People in his own community!!!

From a professional standpoint, your misunderstanding of the concept of "separation of church and state" IS the reason you likely do not get more local support.  

Go back to school, Chief!!

You clearly have a lack of understanding about something.

50 years of prayer stopped after school receives letter | wtsp.com:

"The principal of Haralson County High School, Topher Byrnes, had similar sentiments as Frank.
"From a personal standpoint, I understand the importance of prayer," Byrnes said. "From a professional standpoint, I understand the importance of keeping church and state separate."
Byrnes said it was a sellout crowd, nearly 3,000 people in attendance. He only hopes that kind showing won't end.
"I thank them for their support. I hope and wish the support would continue throughout the year," Byrnes said. "We've got a lot of struggles we need to address academically, and if we could get this kind of support for academic programs we could really start going places."

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