Well, doesn’t this seem like a great idea: home equity lines of credit have staged a big comeback. After six years of declines, lending for so-called Helocs will rise 30 percent to $79.6 billion in 2012, the highest level since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, according to the economics research unit of [...]

David Streitfeld wrote the previous story about all these strategic defaults and how un-American they are. The next in his series of shaming people who can’t afford things is this beaut, where he equates bankruptcy to stealing, sort of: The delinquency rate on home equity loans is higher than all other types of consumer loans, [...]