It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

...which means lots of hard-luck stories in the media (at least while there is still a Republican in the White House); poverty American style.

For years, Mike and Kelly D'Addeo planned to use their trove of Intel Corp. stock options to send their son Tony to a top college.

Tony would be a good candidate for any school: He's a straight-A senior at Bowie High School and captain of the football team, with near-perfect SAT scores. He's not interested in playing college football; instead, Tony talks about majoring in computer science or engineering.

"I'd like to have my own business someday," he said.

But the plunging stock market has made their stock options worthless and crushed the D'Addeos' Ivy League dreams.

As Herman Westinghouse (a family friend, generations back) put it so nicely: "The poor have their troubles as well as the rich."