In which I skirt the subject of the credit reporting bureaus - which are pure evil - and lament the ridiculousness of American Consumer Credit

Odd scenario No. 1:
If you are, say, Sears, why do you offer credit for things like shoes and tools - things that are essentially unsecured as they have no resale value - and then spend a fortune in labor costs trying to recover loaned money that isn't being repaid? Why do you get into bed with people who cannot afford to pay cash for said items? Wouldn't it be better if you only offered credit on large-ticket items such as washing machines, or, say, kits for entire homes?
If you were to eliminate casual user of credit - who, by definition, is using credit incorrectly, wouldn't you immediately recoup the labor cost of your "collections" department and consequently not need such high sales volume?

Odd scenario No. 2:
If you only give credit to those who are statistically likely to repay and those debtors have a few months of financial difficultly - a few months - in 20 plus years of credit history, why would you ever initiate harsh and unreasonable collections against them? You've statistically proven that they actually want to repay you. Treating them like criminals rather than financially smart and successful people with temporary tragedies in their lives is not a psychologically sound course of action. If your reporting (and let's not get me started on credit reporting in this country) has already ruined your client's credit, what incentive does your client now have to pay you back at all - considering the verbal abuse and harassment the current collections best practices employ.

Odd scenario No. 3:
If you are, say, Sears, and you've already paid dearly once when a court of law ordered you to cease and desist for abhorrent and illegal credit collections practices, can you really afford practice consumer credit in such a manner? Sears had to repay millions to those it harassed.