Visitors and contributors to this site know that it is my belief that the ways in which we hold economics, credit and debt has been the essential cause of the economic meltdown we are in.

Moreover, that this mind-set has got to change if we are all going to come out of this in some semblance of sanity and wholeness.

Not surprisingly, the people who are profiting from The Way It Is are not overly welcoming to a change in thinking:   The collection industry.

This business is both benefiting – and reeling from – the fallout caused by poor lending and/or financial practices worldwide. A flood of billions – not millions – of dollars in debt has brought out the worst in them in all too many cases.

The FTC reports that no other service category can match that of collection agencies and attorneys for the number of complaints filed for allegedly illegal or abusive tactics. The natural result: reams of bad press and an entire sub-industry that makes money suing agencies and “counseling” debtors.

Open to change?

Yesterday, I put the willingness of this group to change by accepting an invitation from the editorial staff of insideARM, a major educational resource for the industy to publish a guest blog, titled “Let’s Drive a Stake Through the Heart(lessness) of Old Debt.”

The blog was directed to the owners and employees of an enterprise which profits from the financial miseries of the casualties of our economy.  Doggedly “doing our job,” they make little distinction between debtors abused by financial institutions or those who can pay, should pay and won’t pay a legitimate debt.

Not surprisingly, the blog provoked a lot of response – some people finding areas of agreement, but the preponderant being critical. I couldn’t have been more pleased. The battle is engaged, and the conversation begins.

I can’t be the only person in the U.S. – or throughout the world – calling for change in the way that a ‘debtor’ and ‘debt’ is handled. I invite you to share your own personal and/or professional struggles of being a person in the industry…or being afllicted by this industry.

Perhaps we can “change the hearts and minds” of people in that business sector. Lord knows, the time for change is here.

It takes one of us to start something; it takes all of us to finish it.