“What about the home equity line of credit? In the 1980’s banks offered this new revolving line of credit . . . and everyone wasted their equity - the biggest savings in their lives blown away.”
There’s an economist in SoCal, Chris Thornburg, who I once heard say that the boom in California after 2001 was equal to the amount of home equity withdrawal. And that when it stopped the economy would, too. He was one of the lonely voices warning of the real estate bubble and how it was going to end badly.
I think he was right.
And it was also like an anti-education campaign to the public. Thereafter, people somehow believed it was foolish to NOT spend their equity!