I don't trust salary surveys comparing college grads to non-college grads. I think there is so much more to the equation than just doing a two-point data comparison. Things like personal or cultural habits that promote or encourage long-term employment, which does just as much or more than college education to enhance earning power. There are certain underlying factors to a poor, working person's life. Things like constant lay-offs, shifting employers, changing circumstances, lack of stability... on and on and on. If you can find a company that will let you work for them for 30 years... you're lucky these days.

The flip-side holds as well. There are people that are just so immersed in their particular class-culture that making more money is just an avenue to borrowing more money. I come from a neighborhood of non-college parents owning their own $150,000 (present value- my childhood home was 38k in '83) homes, which is a neighborhood a mile away from college-parents so deep in debt with $350,000 homes (because their numbers look bigger on paper) that they're well and truly fucked.

So this is my opinion: College education helps your earning potential, but the upper middle class life is a recipe for disaster. If it is the case that we need college degrees, it only because we have abandoned labor and destroyed unions to the extent that it is the only option left. It is not superior by nature, but by unfortunate circumstance.

It is true that college degrees help your earning potential, but that earning potential itself is decreasing over time in accordance with simple supply and demand. For every lower-middle class Joe who climbs the ladder and makes that Junior Executive/VP slot just before he retires, there are a thousand other Joes who never get anywhere near that.

Not everybody can be a superstar, a chief, a boss, or an executive. The value of your education will always be subject to market forces, and the plain fact that no one is going to pay you for your degree. You're going to get paid on your position and rank; and for every MBA out there (like a million or two), there are only so many slots available for serious potential. There is only one CEO.

Academics know this. Why get a PhD anymore? If you want one sure. But to get a job that requires one? Ha, have fun playing that game.

The Bible... the Bible... the Bible... in all instances and things we find ourselves beset by the babbling of "the Bible" by fools of all stripes and colors. Yet how do I say such a thing? Words cannot express the joy I experience when reading "the Bible". The inestimable worth of such a thing has yet to be fully understood or grasped, and remains beyond the reach of our systems. Oh "the Bible"... the accolades and homages paid to it are never-ending.

Human dignity is expressed perfectly in the phrase, "...in His image." I cannot understand the attitude portrayed by so many pious crusaders which makes Man owe fealty to a Book. I cannot accept it. If such a bondage or servitude should be imposed, it is nothing less than a fundamental affront to the dignity of Man, and so a great offense against God Himself.

I am Man. I walk with my God. If I should be cast into the desert or deprived of all literature, I would stride confidently to my fate securely wrapped in His grace and His patronage. I do not need the Bible for this. If I should have never heard of such a thing, there I would be, as much a child of God as anything ever was.

My God, your God, our God. I shall seek after Him all the days of my life and no one can deny it.