Great Expectations, Disappointing Realities

These days everyone is suffering. The media has been all over the story of the credit bust, the drop in housing values, the stock market's dive since Labor Day, and how these events have wiped out the American Dream. Financial advisors and other employees of the large publicly traded firms also have seen their retirement savings wiped out as their firms' stock prices plummeted — all that has been well-documented in news stories, too.