The Boston Globe series on the dark underbelly of debt was terrific, journalism at its best and most effective. Now the question is whether their expose will be a tsk-tsk moment, and then everyone will forget. Or will others seize on this moment and make it the impetus for real change?
This morning the Globe gave a first, hopeful answer. Carol Kenner, former Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Court of Massachusetts, published an op-ed laying out five sensible changes that could go a long way toward ending the worst abuses demonstrated by the Globe series.
These changes aren’t radical or bizarre. They are thoughtful, solid suggestions to restore some balance to the debtor-creditor system. They are the sorts of changes that can reasonably be accomplished. And the recent Oregon experience on payday lenders is a reminder that it is possible to make changes. The polling in Oregon showed that people of all political stripes care about these issues, and local groups can have a lot of influence.
Judge Kenner’s ideas are good. But what is even better is that she has taken an important step to keep the issues raised in the Globe series alive. Only if the pressure stays on everyone the legislature, the regulators, the judges, the debt collectors will there be any real chance of moving from tsk-tsk to real change.
