Having a macro level view of consumer debt and debt solutions affords me a great opportunity to see how consumers are being treated around the world when it comes to debt issues.

While creditors like MBNA, now Bank of America, Citibank, Capital One, and others promote and market their products on a global scale, consumer debt help is almost always viewed on a local scale and those hardworking providers can't see the bigger trends.

In the consumer debt world the academic types like my friend Jason Kilborn look at issues with broader vision but as I joked with Jason last week in Berlin, "You academic guys really don't have any idea of what it is really like on the frontlines, do you?"

I extended Jason an open invitation to visit any of our Myvesta worldwide operations if his friends wanted to see what reality was like actually trying to assist consumers in debt. He was surprised to learn that the biggest problem faced is not helping consumers to repay their debt, but that creditors really fight you to make reasonable repayment arrangements to get paid.

Changes in the United Kingdom this week by creditors have created a lot of concern that creditors are far overreaching their control over consumers in debt by either engaging in price-fixing for professional services, colluding to limit access to professional debt services, or maybe even forming a cartel to prevent consumers from getting debt help.

I agree those are big issues and concerns but read my article The Insolvency Exchange Releases New Rules to Control Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVA) Which Benefit Banks But Hurt Consumers and Insolvency Practitioners and give your feedback and impression about the latest Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) control efforts in the UK.

At the same time the latest round of insolvency numbers are out in the UK and they show exactly why consumers deserve to have fair, reasonable and sustainable repayment plans available to repay what they can afford, rather than to be shoved toward bankruptcy.

The United States is shameful in the way that it treats its valuable consumers when they have money troubles. In the United States there is absolutely no way to enter into a binding repayment plan with all your creditors outside of a chapter 13 bankruptcy. And why do we force American consumers into bankruptcy when their situations could be easily resolved outside of the federal courthouse?

Shouldn't it be a requirement that if you are going to extend credit to people that you need to be fair, reasonable and compassionate in order to work out a repayment plan instead of bankruptcy? What do you think?