Reality Check for the World's Rich

June 16, 2009— -- All good things must come to an end -- even for America's jet-setting super rich .

That was certainly true for the Yellowstone Club and its owner, 55-year-old Edra Blixseth, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year to hold off more than 100 creditors to whom she owed at least $141 million.

Yellowstone Club, a posh club in Big Sky, Mont., for the super rich with a 13,600-acre private ski resort, was originally the venture of American billionaire Tim Blixseth, Edra's former husband. The Blixseths ran the club as a team from 1997 until they finalized their divorce last year.

The Blixseths' situation is "an extreme example of what's happening with the wealthy these days," Robert Frank, author of "Richistan" and senior special writer for The Wall Street Journal, told ABC News. "Not many have gone from billionaire to bankrupt ... but the wealthy are losing unprecedented amounts of money."

The couple's problems allegedly began in 2005 when Tim Blixseth obtained a $375 million bank loan from Credit Suisse by guaranteeing the club's income as payback money.

But, according to bankruptcy court documents, much of that loan instead went to create Yellowstone Club World -- a chain of exotic worldwide resorts in France, Scotland, Mexico and on the Caribbean islands. That was Blixseth's dream.

"So much of the wealth is built on borrowed money," Frank said, noting that the Blixseths' situation is indicative of the trends among the wealthy during this financial crisis. "It's all a lot of smoke and mirrors.

"The wealthy have been using leverage and debt to inflate their lifestyle and businesses," said Frank, who looked through many of the Blixseths' financial records. "We are now seeing what happens when the debt dries up."

Credit Suisse still wants to collect a part of this sum and Tim Blixseth has been protected so far because his wife took over the debt from Yellowstone Club in the divorce proceedings.