"People will go to extreme lengths to maintain the facade of success. Mastercard posted a 17% increase in profits last year, which was higher than expected. I was not surprised. The magic HELOC has become more illusive. First people borrow from their home (HELOC), then run up the credit cards, then start selling their boat, RV and other things (like the four pieces of furniture they bought at pottery barn for 20k – kind of a surprise to find out it all is worth $1,500 on the secondary market). Depending on their embarrassment threshold, some will start calling family for a loan at any point in the above. The car only goes when they are threatened with reposession. However, if they are underwater on it, they will just start parking it two streets over."
