Reality shows remain unbelievably popular here in the U.S. "Extreme Makeover" is a television show which chooses a real life family, usually one with a disabled family member, with the family in dire financial straits, and builds them a beautiful new home. This is done over the course of a week. The show sends the family on vacation, tears down their old hovel, and constructs what can only be called amazing and beautiful homes, which are 100% paid in full. All manner of gifts are also given, such as college tuition for children and home furnishings, which are presented to the formerly-destitute family, gratis, no strings attached, as an act of pure kindness and generosity. Many companies donate time, labor, materials and products, and members of the local community chip in to help out with the labor.

Many average people have circumstances present challenges in their lives, including challenges which cause a tough economic strain. But on average, those living in hovels, and destitute, got there and remain there because of the choices they make.

For most of us who are productive or at least employed, a brand new, luxury-accommodation home which costs us nothing, fully appointed, would be a windfall we would appreciate and integrate into our financial lives. The rational productive achiever would integrate the windfall into an otherwise sound financial plan.

What happens when you give a struggling family a mansion for free, and unearned?

From Yahoo News/Associated Press:

"More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.

Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.

After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it's set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed."

Earning material gains are not just a means to an end. Truly earning material wealth, and the trial and error and learning process associated with it, teahces the skills to necessary to hold onto it, and maximize its value.

Give the wealth without the sweat and skill, and the beneficiary will be back in a hovel in short order. It is for this very reason that boxers and celebrities who earn great sums but come from modest backgrounds often are poor once their shooting star falls and their income dries up. That, unfortunately, is what happened here.